


Fireproof

by NotMyProm



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Established Relationship, Forced Orgasm, Gang Rape, Gangbang, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kidnapping, M/M, Mental Institutions, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Recovery, The graphic violence part is very very brief, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:48:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27065155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotMyProm/pseuds/NotMyProm
Summary: Seven years after the war ends, Zuko is kidnapped by a group of dissenters who want to punish him for taking the throne.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 144
Kudos: 515





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This keeps with the canon of the show but ignores the comics/LOK except for some details that I thought were neat, like the Kyoshi Warriors becoming Zuko's bodyguards.

Zuko slides out of bed just as the sun is rising. Sokka groans and rolls over towards where he’s pulling on a dressing robe.

“Where are you going?” he asks sleepily.

“Ssh,” Zuko murmurs. “I told you: there’s a governor who asked me to come meet with him. I’ll be back soon.”

Rather than going back to sleep, Sokka sits up on one elbow, alertness coming into his eyes.

“How soon is soon?”

There’s a worried sharpness in his voice, and Zuko doesn’t need to question why it’s there. He’s lost count how many assassination attempts he’s survived in the past seven years. They’ve gotten less frequent -- it’s been almost a year since the last one -- but he knows better than to believe that they’re over.

“It’s half a day’s journey there and half a day back. I’ll be back by tomorrow night,” Zuko says. “Suki and Ty Lee are coming with me.”

This seems to placate Sokka. Usually Zuko would ask him to come along, too, because he’s better even than Zuko in diplomatic situations, but the trip is so short that it wasn’t worth making him get up at dawn for. Besides, Aang and Katara will be at the palace by afternoon today, and he knows Sokka would far rather catch up with them than go along to some boring meeting.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, leaning down and giving Sokka a kiss on the cheek. “I _can_ take care of myself, you know.”

“I know that,” Sokka says. He reaches up and touches Zuko’s face, then grins sleepily and adds, “My first girlfriend became the moon, remember? It would totally suck if my first boyfriend got turned into the sun or something.”

Zuko laughs and ducks down to kiss Sokka for real. When he starts to pull away, Sokka pulls him back and kisses him long and slow, like he’s trying to memorize him. He runs his hand through Zuko’s hair, which is messy from sleep, tumbling down to his shoulders. Zuko touches Sokka’s cheek, feeling the roughness of his beard. When they finally separate, Zuko presses a hand to his necklace and corrects him:

“Your betrothed.”

It’s been three months since Sokka gave it to him, and his heart still skips a beat when he says the word, when he feels the carving under his fingertips. The ribbon is red to match his usual wardrobe, the image a combination of the fire and water emblems. 

Sokka smiles up at him, the covers pulled back from his bare chest. Zuko wishes he could crawl back in beside him, cuddle up to him and maybe repeat what they did last night, but he doesn’t have time.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says instead, and goes to bathe and dress.

By the time he comes back, Sokka has fallen asleep. Zuko bends down and kisses his forehead, murmurs,

“I love you.”

And Sokka must not be completely asleep yet, because he turns over and whispers, “Love you, too.”

* * *

The journey to Shuhon is quick and pleasant in the balloon, especially with Suki and Ty Lee, wearing their Kyoshi Warrior uniforms, as company. The latter is telling her friends about the surprise party she’s planning for Mai’s birthday.

“You know it’s a month away, right?” Zuko asks.

“Of course I know that,” Ty Lee says. “I can’t believe I waited this long. What kind of girlfriend am I?”

Zuko and Suki share a small smile at their friend’s ridiculousness, but they agree that as soon as they’re back in the capitol they’ll both pitch in with party planning.

When they land it’s a short walk to the governor’s house. They knock on the door, and the governor himself answers. He bows deeply.

“My Lord,” he says reverentially.

“Governor,” Zuko says, and bows, too, not quite as deep.

“Please, come in, Lord Zuko,” the governor says.

Zuko notes, as he follows the governor through the house, the slightly odd fact that there don’t seem to be any servants around. The governor had mentioned in his letter an issue with money -- perhaps he’s laid off his household staff for lack of funds.

“Would you care for some tea, Lord Zuko?” the governor asks, smiling pleasantly, once they’ve arrived in his sitting room.

Zuko accepts politely. The governor offers Ty Lee and Suki tea as well, but they both decline and instead position themselves near the door. Zuko thinks there might be a slight shift in his expression, but when he double checks the man’s smile is still in place. Zuko sips his tea -- he’s never tasted this kind before, and he makes a mental note to ask the name of it so he can tell his uncle -- and fiddles with his necklace. The governor, still smiling, raises his own cup to his lips, then pauses.

“That’s an interesting necklace,” he says.

“Thank you,” Zuko replies, although he’s not entirely sure that that’s a compliment. “My betrothed made it for me. It’s a tradition among the Water Tribe.”

“Oh?” the governor asks, his expression unreadable. “Forgive me, My Lord. I have been rather preoccupied here and news of your betrothal had not reached me. Congratulations. Who is the lucky woman?”

Zuko flinches. He knows that, in spite of him reversing all of Sozin’s anti-gay laws as soon as he took power, many citizens are still wildly homophobic. He takes another, long sip of his tea in order to steel himself, then says,

“He is Ambassador Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe.”

“Ah,” is all the governor says in response.

There is a long silence, during which Zuko finishes his tea. The room feels unbearably hot, even to somebody used to bending fire. He instinctively fiddles with his necklace again.

“So, governor,” he starts, but the words seem to come out of his mouth like sludge. He swallows, shakes his head, and tries again. “Governor…”

“Are you feeling alright, my Lord?” the governor says.

Zuko tries to speak and finds that he can’t. His head is spinning. He hears a shattering sound and realizes he’s dropped his teacup to the floor. He tries to stand up, pressing a hand to his forehead, and stumbles into Suki, who is suddenly there.

“Zuko! Zuko, what’s wrong?”

He looks at her, then looks at the governor, whose smile is no longer polite but malicious. Suki tenses and turns suddenly, nearly dropping him, as people begin to rush into the room. The missing servants? But they’re all dressed like himself and the governor, in finery. Zuko’s head becomes fuzzier and fuzzier. He barely registers sliding out of Suki’s arms as the room explodes with shouting and blasts of fire. The last thing he sees is the governor standing above him, grinning like a tiger-monkey about to consume its prey. Then, black.

* * *

Aang, Sokka and Katara are sitting together around the turtle-duck pond, mid-morning the day after Zuko has left, when a guard comes running into the courtyard.

“Sir,” he says, out of breath. “Sir, Lord Zuko’s bodyguards — they’re in the entrance hall, sir.”

Sokka leaps up.

“Without Zuko?!”

He doesn’t wait for a response, just runs off in the direction of the entrance hall, Aang and Katara close on his heels.

They find the two Kyoshi Warriors limping up the steps towards the throne room, Ty Lee supporting almost all of Suki’s weight. There are several more palace guards around them who seem to be trying to help, but Ty Lee keeps pushing them away.

“The Ambassador, we have to see the Ambassador!” she says, sounding nearly hysterical.

Sokka runs directly up to them.

“What happened? Where’s Zuko?”

“Sokka…” Suki says, then begins coughing. “Sokka, I’m so sorry…”

She’s covered in ash and seems to have been burned in several places. Ty Lee is also covered in ash but less burned. They’ve clearly breathed in a lot of smoke based on Suki’s coughing and the scratch in Ty Lee’s voice when she says,

“They jumped us. There were at least ten of them, fire benders, I think they drugged Zuko.”

Katara pulls Suki away and Ty Lee finally lets go of her. After gently lowering her to the ground, Katara bends water out of the pouch at her waist and moves it over the burns on Suki’s body.

“Who’s ‘them’?” Aang asks, coming over to let Ty Lee lean against him.

“They looked like noblemen,” Ty Lee says. She’s babbling a little — it seems like the shock has hit her. “They burned the whole house down, the governor’s house in Shuhon. Took him with them. We barely got out. Suki almost wouldn’t leave, I had to pull her away. They took Zuko with them, he was unconscious. They took him.”

“Oh no…” Aang says. He looks at Sokka — Aang is taller than Sokka now, and he’s grown into his face, but his eyes are the same as when they first met, wide and caring.

“There was a ship,” he says, “as we flew past Shuhon yesterday, there was a ship leaving. I thought it was odd because it was clearly a Fire Nation ship but it wasn’t flying Fire Nation colors.”

“Well, what the fuck are we doing standing around here?!” Sokka shouts, already turning to go get his weapons from Zuko’s chambers. “We have to go find him! Right now!”

“Sokka…”

Suki is lying on the ground as Katara works on her. Sokka almost doesn’t hear her over the pounding rage in his head, but she repeats herself to make sure he does.

“Sokka.”

He kneels down next to them. Katara looks up at him, her eyes shimmering empathetically.

“These burns are really bad. I’ll have to work on them for a while before I catch up with you.”

Suki reaches up to him. There’s something clenched in her fist, and Sokka holds out his hand for it.

“I saw him rip this off, before he took Zuko,” she says, and Sokka understands that she means one of Zuko’s kidnappers.

She puts it in his hand and Sokka looks down at it. His rage boils over and he starts to cry.

It’s Zuko’s betrothal necklace.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing that Zuko hears is the sound of the ocean, water lapping against the side of a ship. He raises his head and opens his eyes. He seems to be belowdecks, in a small, bare cell, lit only by a few lanterns on the walls. There’s a cot against one wall, but he’s not on it. He’s on his knees on the floor, his wrists and ankles cuffed behind him and chained to some kind of hook which he feels with his fingers.

He pulls at the cuffs to see if he can break them, find a weak spot. He doesn’t think he can melt them, but it might be worth a try. He pulls the fire from his belly and sends it to his fingertips.

Nothing happens. He tries again, shutting his eyes and trying to feel his fire. It won’t come. He breathes out and there’s not even a spark.

“Strong stuff, isn’t it?”

The voice comes from behind him. Zuko jumps and tries to crane his neck around to see who spoke, but he can’t.

“One of the rarest teas in the world. The flower grows on the edges of volcanoes, and only blossoms during a solar eclipse. If you brew it right, it blocks the drinker’s chi, stopping their ability to bend.”

He hears a door slam shut and the governor walks around to stand in front of him, leaning against the wall and looking down at him with a smirk.

“Don’t worry, it’s not permanent,” he continues. “It’ll wear off in about a week. Of course, you won’t live long enough for that, so I suppose it may as well be permanent.”

“This is treason!” Zuko spits.

“No, I’ll tell you what’s treason!” the governor shouts, advancing on Zuko and grabbing his face. “Treason is betraying your own country, usurping your father, and halting your nation’s progress just when it was about to conquer the world!”

Zuko does his best to glare up at the man.

“I stopped my father from disgracing the Fire Nation even more than it already had been, by committing further atrocities against the innocent.”

The man lets go of his face and slaps him, hard enough that Zuko tastes blood.

“And worse,” he continues, as though Zuko hadn’t spoken, “what’s _worse_ , is _debasing_ the entire Fire Nation by betrothing yourself to some Water Tribe _scum!_ ”

He leans in close and wraps his hand around Zuko’s neck, and it’s then that Zuko realizes his betrothal necklace is gone. The man must have taken it. Then the governor is tightening his hand, cutting off Zuko’s air until he’s struggling against his bonds. Finally he lets go, and Zuko slumps forward, coughing and hacking.

”The tea was only a precaution,” the governor says, walking around behind Zuko again so he can’t see him, “so you couldn’t fight back if the drugs didn’t work. I was planning to just let my allies torture you a little once you woke up, burn you to death before we tossed your body into the sea.”

Zuko feels the governor immediately behind him.

“But then I saw that _thing_ around your neck, and I knew I had to make you suffer first. My allies agreed.”

“Fuck you,” Zuko spits.

The man grabs at Zuko’s clothes, which are singed but mostly intact. He produces a knife and begins slashing through the fabric. Zuko struggles but the governor is quick, tearing away his robes and then his undergarments until Zuko is naked, shivering in the sudden chill.

“What the fuck?!” he shouts. “What do you think you’re doing, you sick motherfucker?!”

The governor laughs, coming around to stand in front of Zuko again. He grabs his hair in one fist and cuts it off in one smooth motion. He holds it up in front of Zuko, nearly a foot and a half of growth, and Zuko’s head feels suddenly lighter without it. It falls to the floor along with the tatters of Zuko’s clothes.

“You don’t deserve to wear your hair like a Fire Lord. You’re nothing but a traitor.”

If he still had his fire bending, Zuko would incinerate the man on the spot. As it is, he narrows his eyes and growls,

“You’ll pay for this with your life.”

The governor doesn’t flinch, but instead takes a step closer to Zuko, so Zuko has to crane his neck to keep eye contact with him. Zuko just barely stops himself from shrinking back, suddenly aware of how naked he is.

“Oh, I’m well aware this is a suicide mission,” the man responds. “We’ve all agreed: our own lives in exchange for avenging our country. It’s worth it.”

“I saw your so-called ‘allies’,” Zuko says. “Is this how you avenge your country? By mobbing my bodyguards, ten to two, and drugging me like a coward? You’re not brave enough to fight me yourself. You’re a shame to your country.”

“No,” the governor says, taking a step closer. “I’ll show you shame.”

He nudges his foot between Zuko’s legs, taps his cock with the toe of his shoe. This time Zuko does shrink away, trying to move out of the man’s reach, but it doesn’t work.

“Get off of me!”

The governor grabs him by the hair, the few inches of it that are left.

“By the time we’re done with you,” he says, his free hand at his belt, “you’ll feel your country’s shame.”

He pulls his cock out and Zuko jerks against his bonds.

“I’ll bite.”

The governor holds his knife up to Zuko’s face, terrifyingly close to his right eye.

“Go ahead,” he says, “but my hand might slip if you do.”

Zuko takes a deep breath. He’s sure, if he just holds out and gets time to plan, that he can find a way to escape. Losing his good eye will make that much, much harder. He looks up at the governor and then back down. He doesn’t say anything, but clearly the man understands, because he puts the knife away with a chuckle.

“There we go,” he says. He puts a hand on his cock, already half-hard, and strokes it. “You’ll give it up for that Water Tribe filth, so this shouldn’t be so bad.”

He guides the head of his cock into Zuko’s mouth, and Zuko doesn’t resist. He tastes like sweat and precum as he slides over Zuko’s tongue. He’s not gentle, grabbing Zuko’s hair in both hands and using it to push his head down until he chokes. The governor holds Zuko in place, forcing him to gag around him, until he finally lets up.

Zuko coughs and splutters, sucking in a breath before the governor shoves his cock back in. It’s true that he’s blown Sokka plenty of times, but Sokka has never yanked cruelly on his hair, fucking in and out of his mouth, using him to get off. He shuts his eyes and tries to picture Sokka in his mind. He’s going to survive this. He has to. He has to see Sokka again.

The governor pauses and pulls out, and Zuko takes the opportunity to take in several deep breaths, swallowing the drool that’s built up in his mouth.

“Let’s make this more fun, shall we?” the governor asks.

He’s taken a strip of Zuko’s clothing and wraps it around Zuko’s neck, tying it in the back and then grabbing it from behind and pulling to choke him. When he lets up, Zuko barely has time to get a single, desperate breath in before the cock is in his mouth again.

It seems like some kind of sick game, the governor alternating between fucking Zuko’s face and choking him with the cloth, giving him mere moments to breathe in between. It’s almost a relief when the governor pulls out, coming all over Zuko’s face.

He lets go and Zuko slumps forward, coughing and retching. When he finally gets his breath back, the man is standing above him, smirking, his cock already tucked back into his pants.

“Did you enjoy yourself, my Lord?” he asks.

Zuko spits at his feet.

“You’re a mess,” the governor says. “Here, let’s clean your face off.”

He grabs a fistful of Zuko’s hair from the floor and wipes the cum and drool off Zuko’s face, then drops it in front of Zuko when he’s finished.

“Don’t worry,” the governor says as he opens the cell door to walk out. “There’s plenty more where that came from. My allies are all ready to help teach you your lesson.”

With that, he shuts the door, and Zuko hears a bar slide into place. It’s only now that he’s alone that he finally lets himself cry.

* * *

The house is almost completely burned down. They can still see smoke rising from it as they approach, although the flames seem to have died down. Leaving Appa a little ways away so that he doesn’t have to inhale any ash, Aang and Sokka make their way to where a team of fire bending soldiers have sat to rest after subduing the blaze.

“What happened here?” Aang asks.

“Looks like a fight,” says the leader, standing up and bowing to Aang respectfully. “The fire started in the back of the house. It must have been at least ten benders all at once to be able to set the whole place on fire.”

He starts walking back towards the house, leading Sokka and Aang to where the fire started.

“Funny thing is, we didn’t find any bodies, which means all of the benders got out. They must’ve lost control and had to evacuate. But none of them called for help; we only knew to come fight the fire when it was so big you could see the smoke for miles.”

“They didn’t lose control,” Sokka says as they step through what used to be a back door into the room where the fighters think the fire started. “This was on purpose.”

Something crunches beneath his shoe. He kneels to pick it up, brushes soot off of what turns out to be shards of a teacup.

“What do you mean?” the soldier asks.

“The Fire Lord was here for a meeting with the governor,” Aang explains. “He and his bodyguards were ambushed by a team of fire benders.”

“The Fire Lord was attacked?!”

“Kidnapped,” Aang confirms.

Sokka is walking in slow circles around what’s left of the room, trying to piece together what happened. Was Zuko sitting here, facing the window? What did he and the governor talk about before the man jumped him? How long did the drugs take to start working? What had they felt like? He imagines Zuko sliding out of consciousness, struggling to fight back against his attackers, falling to the ground as he lost the use of his limbs.

“Sokka?”

He looks up to find Aang standing next to him, touching his arm, and realizes he’s been standing frozen in the middle of the room, whispering to himself.

“Sorry,” he says, but the word doesn’t quite come out past the burning in his throat.

He lets the tears fall without trying to stop them, leans into the hug that Aang offers.

“We’ll find him, Sokka, I promise we will.”

“Thank you,” Sokka whispers.

He clears his throat and wipes his eyes. Remembering that the soldier is still in the room, he looks up, a little embarrassed, but the man meets his eyes with sympathy.

“You’re betrothed to His Highness, right?”

Sokka’s hand goes to his pocket, where he’s put Zuko’s necklace. It doesn’t feel right to wear it. He fingers the carving that he spent so long on, stealing time here and there, going through five different versions until it finally felt right.

“Yes.”

“The Captain was just saying that there’s a path here that goes down to a private dock,” Aang says. “I mentioned the war ship we saw yesterday.”

Sokka nods, grateful for the subject change. They follow the path down and find a surprisingly large dock, tucked away in a hidden bay that’s protected from view by dense forest around its edges.

“I don’t think this is meant to dock a war ship to,” the soldier says, “but you could.”

Sokka walks to the end of the dock and breathes in the smell of the sea, wonders if Zuko is smelling the same thing right now, wherever he is. Something shiny catches his eye in the water. He has to lay down on his stomach to pull it free from the netting and seaweed wrapped around the support pole. It’s Zuko’s Fire Lord headpiece.

“He was here,” Sokka says, standing up and showing Aang and the soldier the gold flame. “You were right, Aang. They must have taken him aboard a ship.”

“Those ships are fast,” Aang says. “We’re going to need all the help we can get to find them.”

Sokka nods.

“I think I know where to start.”


	3. Chapter 3

Zuko makes himself stop crying. He has work to do.

He still can’t move his body very far, but he doesn’t need to. He breathes deeply and pushes his awareness inward.

After the war, he asked Ty Lee for a favor.

“I want you to teach me how to fight chi blocking.”

She looked at him seriously.

“I only know how to do it in theory. I’ve never tried it for real.”

He insisted, so she told him: chi blocking only blocked the pathways for the chi to flow, but it was still there. If he could tap into it and focus on each blocked pathway one at a time, he could theoretically push through them and allow his chi to flow properly again.

So they practiced for weeks. Ty Lee would tap just one pressure point, blocking the pathway to his arm, and he’d focus as hard as he could until his arm moved again and he felt fire on his fingertips. They moved to more and more pathways at once until he could do it from complete paralysis. But only sometimes. Sometimes, he would focus with his entire being and still not be able to move until the chi blocking had worn off on its own.

“It’s really hard,” Ty Lee said encouragingly, when he got so frustrated that he launched a fireball into the sky. “Almost nobody can do it consistently. It’s great that you can even do it half the time.”

Now, alone in his cell, Zuko focuses on his stomach, feeling the chi still swirling around in it, unable to move enough for him to fire bend. The blocks aren’t enough to paralyze him, but as he pushes against one, he can feel how strong it is -- much more so than when Ty Lee jabs him. They probably would take a week to wear off on their own.

Suddenly, the door behind him opens again, and he’s forced to stop.

“What do you want?” he spits, with every ounce of hatred he can muster.

“I think you know what we want, my Lord,” says a voice from behind him. It’s not the governor.

The man steps into view, and then another, and another. They stream into the tiny cell, and he can hear more people outside in the hallway. Although Zuko doesn’t recognize any of their faces, he knows that they must be the “allies” who ambushed him, Suki and Ty Lee. He does notice, with some satisfaction, a fresh cut on one of their faces that clearly came from one of Suki’s fans.

The first man squats down in front of Zuko.

“Look at you,” he says, and reaches out to touch Zuko’s shorn hair. “Some Fire Lord, huh?”

Zuko spits in his face. It’s a mistake.

“You little shit!”

The man hits him and Zuko’s head snaps back. The second man grabs Zuko by his shoulders and shoves him to the ground so that he’s lying on his side, his wrists and ankles still chained to the floor behind him. He’s completely defenseless when one of them lands a kick to his stomach, making him gasp and retch. They beat him mercilessly, fists, open hands, and feet striking all over his naked body.

Zuko coughs and spits out blood, on the ground this time to hopefully avoid setting them off again. But he doesn’t cry. If his father taught him one thing, it’s how to take a beating.

One of them grabs his hair, twisting Zuko’s face to look at him. Zuko doesn’t look away.

“I’m glad we decided not to kill you right away,” he says, panting a little. “You’ll be fun to break.”

He lets Zuko’s head drop back to the floor and unlocks one of the chains so that Zuko’s wrists are released from the floor but still cuffed together behind his back. Two of the men grab him under the arms and lay him down on his stomach, in the pile of what’s left of his clothes and hair. There’s a wolf whistle from the hallway.

“Wait your turn!” one of the men inside the cell calls, and Zuko realizes why the rest of them are standing outside — they’re lining up.

The man slaps his ass and, when Zuko doesn’t make a sound, does it again, harder and harder until finally he cries out at the pain.

“Ready, my Lord?”

There’s laughter but Zuko barely hears it because the man’s hands are spreading his ass open, his thumb rubbing at Zuko’s hole.

“Stop it!”

There’s more laughter.

“I think he said ‘Please fuck me,’” the man says to his companions.

“That’s what I heard,” one of them returns.

He starts to push his thumb inside, completely dry, and Zuko struggles uselessly against his bonds.

“What’s wrong, my Lord?” he asks, pushing his thumb in further. “Are you not comfortable? Is this not how your boyfriend does it?”

Zuko sets his jaw and doesn’t respond.

“I’ll tell you what, Your Lordship,” the man says, pulling his thumb out. “Do you want some lube?”

Zuko clenches and unclenches his fists. He’s not getting out of this, and there’s so many men — he thinks ten or maybe more from the sound of them. Breathing slowly, he forces himself to nod once.

“What’s that?” another of the men says, nudging Zuko’s face with his foot so Zuko flinches away. “Lost your voice?”

Zuko swallows.

“Yes,” he says, and then, when the man bends over and grabs his hair, he says it louder. “Yes, use lube. Please.”

He hates himself for the crack that comes into his voice, but the man’s thumb doesn’t come back in.

Instead the man leans down over Zuko’s body and shoves three fingers into his mouth. Zuko thinks, briefly, of biting down on them, but he remembers the knife from before and doesn’t. The man pushes his fingers as far into Zuko’s mouth as they’ll go, holding them there for Zuko to choke around them, saliva building in the back of his throat. When the man pulls his hand out, his fingers are coated in Zuko’s spit.

He moves back and Zuko feels him grab his ass again, squeezing his cheek while one slicked up finger pushes inside him. Zuko bites his lip and shuts his eyes against the familiar burn. The man is impatient, already pushing a second finger in. Zuko tries to make himself relax, knows that it will hurt more if he’s tense, but it’s difficult to do when the man’s fingers feel so  _ wrong _ inside him. He pictures Sokka in his mind, tries to pretend it’s his fingers inside him, but Sokka would never move them so cruelly, and would wait longer before removing them and pulling his cock out.

He can hear the man slick himself up with his own spit, and then his cock is pressing into his asshole, slowly pushing Zuko open.

“No…” he moans, trying to wiggle away but stopped by his chains. “Stop!”

“Don’t worry, my Lord,” the man growls, his cock already halfway in. “I’ll give it to you much better than that Water Tribe boy ever could. I’ll show you how a Fire Nation man fucks.”

“Fuck you, get off of me!”

The man braces himself with one hand next to Zuko’s head and pushes all the way in. It hurts less than the beating did, but Zuko would have chosen being beaten for hours if it meant he didn’t have to feel this.

Once he’s in, the man moves faster, grabbing Zuko’s hip and fucking him with quick, sharp thrusts. Zuko cries out and he has to squeeze his eyes closed in order to hold back tears. He can hear the other two men in the room groaning as they watch, and when he opens his eyes they both have their cocks out in anticipation.

The man leans down over him and starts biting his back, sucking bruises into the skin.

“Oh, Fire Lord, you mark up so nicely,” he says.

“Stop…”

Another of the men kneels next to Zuko’s face, stroking his hardening cock. He grabs Zuko by the hair and lifts his face up. Zuko doesn’t have to ask what he wants. He tries to keep his mouth shut, but just then the man inside him gives a particularly harsh thrust, and he cries out in pain. The other man takes the opportunity and forces his cock past Zuko’s lips. Zuko gags but there’s nothing he can do as the man holds his head in place and fucks up into his mouth.

The first man finishes inside his ass with a long groan, then continues to fuck him, his cum squelching in and out. When he finally pulls out, he wipes his cock off on Zuko’s ass before getting up. Zuko is still choking on the cock in his mouth as the third man straddles him. He slaps Zuko’s ass with both hands, spreading his cheeks apart and spitting into his hole. With no other preface, he slides his cock in, the first man’s cum acting as lube to ease his movement.

When the man in front of him comes, he holds Zuko’s head still so that it goes down his throat. Zuko coughs and splutters when he pulls out, a string of drool going from his mouth to the man’s cock. By this time the man behind him has started fucking him in earnest, slamming his hips into the floor with every thrust.

When Zuko looks up, there’s already a new man kneeling down in front of him to take his mouth, with another entering the cell to wait his turn. It’s that sight, and the knowledge of all the men still out in the hall, queueing up for a chance to rape him, that finally makes Zuko start to cry.

“Your Highness!” the man kneeling in front of him says sarcastically. “What’s wrong? Are you not having fun?”

“Fuck you!”

The man laughs and cuts off Zuko’s protests with another cock in his mouth. The other man leans down over his back and whispers in his ear,

“You fucking whore, you filthy traitor, you deserve this. Fucking take it.”

When the man in front of him finishes on his face, the one inside his ass grabs hold of the piece of cloth still tied around his neck. He pulls back and Zuko chokes. He uses it like reins as he fucks him, barely letting up long enough for Zuko to get a breath in. When he comes, he tightens the cloth for so long that Zuko briefly blacks out, coming to when the man pulls out and lets him drop to the floor.

The next man to fuck his ass says,

“Hang on, I want him doggy style,” and his friends oblige, pulling Zuko’s hips back so that he’s on his knees, his ass in the air, already leaking cum from the first two men.

“Please stop…” Zuko begs, barely aware of saying it. His resistance is already gone. “Please…”

But then the man is inside him and Zuko can only moan in pain.

Another man kneels in front of him, but Zuko can’t lift his head from the floor to meet him.

“Lift him up for me, would you?”

The man fucking him grabs his arms and pulls his torso up so that the other man can force his cock into Zuko’s mouth. Zuko isn’t sure which is worse — when they taunt him or when they talk about him like he’s not even there.

He loses track of how many there are, but he could swear he sees some of the same faces more than once, men who finished earlier coming back for seconds. He stops struggling after five, and stops counting after seven. 

One of them unchains his ankles from the floor and pulls Zuko onto his lap, making him ride his cock with his knees splayed open to the whistles and taunts of their audience. They take him on the floor, against the wall, on the bed; they put him on his knees or on his stomach, on his back with his legs over their shoulders, chain behind their neck. A lot of them seem to like the governor’s makeshift collar. They yank on it to make him move or just to choke him, or some of them ignore it altogether and wrap their hands around his throat, squeezing until Zuko almost passes out.

Then, finally, they leave him. They tire themselves out and abandon him, and Zuko is alone. He curls up on the cot, his wrists still cuffed behind him and his ankles chained together. He tries to ignore the cum all over his body, inside and out, and the dull pain everywhere he’s been hit. He can’t seem to stop himself from shaking.

Zuko shuts his eyes and pictures Sokka in his head. He’s able to calm his breathing bit by bit, and eventually he slides into an uneasy sleep, whispering Sokka’s name under his breath.

* * *

The White Lotus responds quickly when they hear what’s happened. Iroh arrives at the Palace within half a day of Sokka’s message, traveling with Toph from the Earth Kingdom.

“I’m so sorry,” Iroh says, and pulls Sokka into a hug.

Sokka is surprised at first, then reciprocates. He’s had an extra fondness for the old General for years, which was solidified when Iroh was the first person outside of their close friends that he and Zuko told about their relationship. Sokka remembers watching Zuko’s face, the terror that he would lose the only family member who had loved him at his lowest point. Ozai had raised Zuko to hate queerness, to see it as shameful and wrong, which was why Zuko had taken so much longer than Sokka had to both recognize his feelings and to feel comfortable expressing them. Sokka, who grew up knowing people in his tribe in same-gender relationships, had figured out he was bisexual when he was fourteen and had never worried about finding acceptance until he watched Zuko’s face in the tea shop when he announced,

“Uncle, Sokka and I are together. I’m gay.”

And Iroh had immediately pulled his nephew into his arms. Both of them were crying, but Iroh’s voice was strong when he said,

“I will love you no matter who you love. All I want is for you to be happy.”

Now, Sokka breaks the hug and looks down at Iroh, tears in his eyes.

“Hey,” Toph says beside him, giving him a light punch to the shoulder (far lighter than she usually would, which is considerate of her). “Don’t cry. We’ll find him.”

Sokka nods and swallows his tears back. They sit in a circle with Aang and Katara, several of the Kyoshi Warriors including a bandaged Suki and Ty Lee, and Mai, who holds Ty Lee’s hand in her lap protectively.

“We think they’re in a fire nation war ship,” Sokka says. “It’s been three days, so they could be anywhere by now.”

“They probably won’t risk being near the Fire Nation or any of the more populated parts of the Earth Kingdom,” says Iroh, “but we have everyone there on high alert in case they do.”

“Every ship in the fleet is out looking for him,” Sokka says. “If they spot a ship that’s not where it should be, we’ll know.”

The meeting goes on for several hours as they debate where the kidnappers are most likely to go. Sokka gets progressively more and more quiet, his mind consumed by the thought of Zuko all alone, wondering why Sokka hasn’t come for him yet.

_ I’m trying, baby _ , he thinks to himself, then looks up to find everyone staring at him and realizes he’s said it out loud.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he says.

“It’s getting late,” Katara says. “We should stop for tonight.”

“We can’t stop!” Sokka shouts. “We can’t stop until we find him!”

“We’re not stopping the search,” Aang says gently. “Just the meeting. If anyone finds anything we’ll go right away.”

Sokka sighs because he knows Aang’s right.

“Okay.”

Katara finds him in Zuko’s empty chambers at midnight.

“Sokka,” she says from the doorway, making him jump. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Night before last,” he says, and turns back to the ocean maps he’s been studying, tracing the lines of the different routes with his fingers and muttering to himself.

“You should go to sleep,” Katara says.

When he doesn’t respond, she puts her hands on the table and leans towards him until he looks up.

“I can’t,” he says. “I tried. I dream about him.”

Katara sits down across from him.

“You should still keep trying.”

Sokka passes a hand in front of his face. He can’t deny that he’s exhausted, but,

“How can I sleep when I should be searching for Zuko?”

“If it were the other way around, would you want him to stay up for days for you?”

Sokka almost wants to say yes, just to be stubborn, but he thinks about Zuko and a fierce protectiveness wells up inside him.

“No.”

Katara smiles and puts the map away.

“Just keep trying, okay? You can’t focus on finding him if you’re too tired to see straight.”

“I don’t do anything straight,” Sokka jokes half-heartedly, and returns Katara’s smile. “Okay, I’ll try.”

When she’s gone, Sokka paws around in the wardrobe until he finds Zuko’s dressing gown. He strips and wraps himself up in it, feeling the silk against his skin and picturing Zuko. The gown smells like him, so Sokka holds the fabric close to his face as he lies down and finally dozes off.


	4. Chapter 4

Even with his bending cut off, Zuko can still feel the movements of the sun, so he’s able to count the passing hours and days. He has no idea how long he was unconscious when he was first drugged, but he thinks today is the fourth day. He spends every spare moment focusing on his chi, pushing against the blocks until he can feel them start to soften. The progress is so slow that sometimes he wonders if it’s even worth it. He knows the most he has is a week, but there’s no guarantee that they won’t get bored and kill him before then. They have been feeding him, about once a day, so they seem to want to keep him alive for now. And they certainly don’t seem bored yet.

He’s never alone for more than a few hours before one or more of them come into his cell to rape him again. It’s worst at night when Zuko can’t mark the passage of time or calculate how long he’s managed to sleep before being woken up by a hand yanking his hair, or throwing him to the floor. He starts to recognize different ones, mostly by the ways they like to use him — there’s one who always wants him on his back, one of his ankle cuffs undone so the man can spread Zuko’s legs; there’s another that likes him on his hands and knees so he can claw his fingernails down Zuko’s back, sink his teeth into Zuko’s shoulder. A lot of them like choking him, but none more than the governor, even though the cloth around his neck got torn away yesterday.

And there’s the burns. Nobody actually fire bends at him, but some of them heat their hands up when they touch him so they feel like hot coals against his skin, leaving it red and stinging. It’s after those assaults that Zuko tries his hardest at undoing the chi blocking, because if he can get even a fraction of his bending to work, then he can burn them back.

The door opens and Zuko raises his head from where he’s curled up on the cot, his hands cuffed behind him again. It’s the governor. Zuko drops his head and stares fixedly at the wall.

“How are you feeling, Fire Lord?”

Zuko doesn’t respond, so the governor grabs him by his hair and throws him to the ground. Zuko lands hard and loses his breath for a moment.

“I said, how are you feeling, Fire Lord?”

“Fuck you.”

The man laughs.

“We’ve been taking bets,” he says, “on how long until you break. I think I know how to speed it up.”

He unchains Zuko’s wrists from behind him and cuffs them to the leg of the bed, then undoes one of the ankle cuffs so he can kneel between Zuko’s legs, right there on the floor. The last rape was less than twenty minutes ago, so Zuko’s asshole is still stretched and dripping with the last man’s cum. The governor slides his cock into Zuko without ceremony, pulling Zuko’s hips down until he’s sheathed all the way inside him. He fucks him slowly, lazily, and it’s only a minute or so before his hand comes up to grip Zuko’s throat.

Zuko can do nothing to stop him as he tightens his grip, over and over again, for longer and longer until Zuko blacks out. He always comes back to the same thing: the governor above him, cock inside him and hand around his neck, ready to send him under again.

The worst thing, though, is when the governor’s other hand slides between their bodies and wraps around Zuko’s cock. Zuko bucks against him and tries to squirm away.

“ _No!_ ”

The man only laughs. He starts to stroke Zuko in time with his thrusts, and Zuko feels his cock respond, getting hard in the man’s hand.

“No, no, stop it!”

“What’s wrong, my Lord?” the man asks, smiling cruelly. “I just want to help you enjoy yourself.”

“ _Fuck you_ ,” Zuko spits. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!”

In spite of the hatred thrumming in his chest, he can feel himself reacting to the man’s touch, his hips arching up towards the governor’s hand even as he starts to cry with fury. He hasn’t come in days, not since his last night with Sokka, so he’s on the brink much more quickly than usual, panting with desperation.

“No… No…”

The man chokes him again, and the orgasm rips through him just as he starts to black out.

When he comes to, the man is still fucking him, even harder than before. The governor laughs again and brings his hand, covered in cum, up to Zuko’s lips. Zuko clenches his jaw shut in refusal, so the man just smears the cum over his face.

When he’s done, the governor cuffs Zuko’s ankles back together and leaves him chained to the bed. He kicks him in the stomach and Zuko doubles over, but he barely registers it through the haze of shame and anger. He squeezes his eyes closed and stays that way until long after the man has left, not even bothering to try to wipe his face off on his arm. He’s panting and sobbing, and it takes him a while to realize that he feels heat in front of his face. He opens his eyes and watches as, with every exhale, a little flame streams from his mouth.

* * *

“Sokka!”

Sokka rolls over in bed.

“Not now, babe,” he murmurs, reaching up to push Zuko away from him. “Five more minutes.”

“Sokka, it’s me.”

He opens his eyes to see Toph standing above him, afternoon sun streaming in through the curtains behind her, and remembers in a rush that Zuko is not here. He sits bolt upright.

“What time is it? How long did I sleep?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she says, and grabs his arm to start pulling him up. “Lookouts saw a Fire Nation ship north of the Western Air Temple. They think they’ve just been sailing around the ocean.”

Sokka takes a moment to process this information, then flings himself out of bed and pulls on his clothes.

“When do we leave?”

“We’re ready when you are.”

They take Appa and a pair of war balloons, forgoing a larger air ship, which is harder to hide. Suki and Ty Lee stay behind, still healing from their injuries, but Mai and the Kyoshi Warriors come along, as well as Iroh and several more White Lotus members. As soon as they’re within a few miles of the last location the warship was seen, Katara and Aang pull fog around them and they slow down. By that point, it’s dusk, and the growing darkness helps cover them, too. Sokka sits in Appa’s saddle, his friends around him, and clenches the hilt of his sword so hard his knuckles turn white.

“Hey.”

Sokka looks up to find Aang standing in front of him, the only one of them not bundled up against the cold because he’s able to regulate his body temperature with his air bending. When Sokka doesn’t respond, he sits down beside him.

“What are you thinking about?”

Sokka sighs. He meets Aang’s gaze and then looks away, staring at his feet instead.

“What if we’re too late? What if they’ve already killed him?”

“I don’t think they have,” Aang says, and Sokka can tell from the tone of his voice that he’s not just saying this to be kind. “I think you’d have felt it if they did.”

Sokka lets out a humorless laugh.

“Aang, I can’t feel things like that. I’m not a bender like you are.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Aang says. “When you’re that connected to someone, you can feel their life force. You don’t have to be a bender to tap into that.”

“If you say so,” Sokka says.

“He’s right,” Mai says from where she’s sitting across from them.

Sokka looks up, surprised. He’s never been close to Mai, only knows her as Zuko’s ex who turned out to be a lesbian. She meets his gaze.

“Ty Lee explained it to me once. She says we can feel each other’s chi even from miles away, and if one of us died, the other would know.”

“Sounds like you two have some real cheerful conversations,” Sokka says sardonically, then immediately regrets it.

Mai doesn’t respond to that, and before Sokka can apologize, Katara is calling from the front:

“Look down there!”

They all peer over the side of the saddle where she’s pointing, at a Fire Nation warship flying no colors. Sokka unsheathes his sword.

“Let’s go.”

The fog is dense enough that they’re able to pull Appa up next to the ship before anybody spots them, and by the time somebody shouts an alarm, Sokka, Aang, Katara, Toph and Mai are all on board. The two war balloons aren’t far behind, landing on the deck so their passengers can stream out.

“Those aren’t sailors, they’re Fire Nation nobles!” Iroh shouts, before balls of flame start shooting in all directions.

Sokka acts on pure instinct. He feels his body respond faster than his mind can, dodging flames until he can get up to a fire bender and incapacitate him. The man looks up at him from where Sokka has him pinned to the deck, sword at his throat, and smirks.

“You’re the Fire Lord’s boyfriend, aren’t you? He’s a good fuck for a traitor, I’ll give him that.”

Before Sokka knows what’s happening, his sword is through the man’s neck, his blood seeping out onto the floor. He stares at the man’s eyes as they empty of life.

“Look out!”

Sokka ducks as another fireball flies past his face. He whirls around just in time to see the man who shot it pinned to the wall by several throwing knives. He looks back at Mai, who gives him a single nod. He nods back.

Then Toph is there, grabbing his arm.

“Someone’s still belowdecks,” she says, and he follows her.

They make their way to what seems to be a row of cells, the doors all barred from the outside. Toph approaches one of them, then stops.

“You should go in by yourself,” she says.

Sokka swallows down his fear at what she might be sensing inside. He opens the door.

The cell is dimly lit by lanterns on the walls, with no windows to speak of. The first thing he sees is a pile of tattered clothes and hair on the floor, and then there’s fire being launched at him and he has to duck.

“Zuko!”

Zuko is lying on the floor, naked, his hands chained to the leg of a small cot. He’s curled up but Sokka can still see the injuries all over his body, bruises and hand-shaped burns that make bile rise in his throat. Zuko opens his mouth and breathes fire at him again, not strong enough to reach him all the way across the room.

“Get away from me!”

“Zuko, it’s me. It’s Sokka.”

Sokka takes off his helmet and drops it and his sword, still covered in blood, on the floor. Zuko glares at him and then his eyes open wide.

“Sokka…”

Sokka approaches him slowly, his hands open at his side to make sure not to startle him again. He kneels down beside Zuko and reaches out, very carefully, to touch his shoulder. Zuko looks up at him and Sokka can see what’s clearly cum all over his face and in his hair, which has been shorn roughly, and he has to suppress a scream of rage.

“We’re here to save you, Zuko. We came to find you.”

He lifts the bedframe up in order to slide Zuko’s chains out from under it. Zuko is shaking.

“Sokka… Sokka, I knew you’d come, I _knew_ it.”

Sokka looks around desperately for something to cover him with, but what’s left of his clothes are torn beyond usefulness, so Sokka takes his coat off and wraps Zuko up in it, swaddling him like a child. He lifts him up into his arms and carries him out of the cell.

“Toph, can you do something about these chains?” he asks, keeping his voice as steady as he can.

Toph nods and moves her hands, and the chains fall away from Zuko’s wrists and ankles and clatter to the floor.

“Thank you,” Zuko whispers.

It’s so soft that Sokka wonders if Toph has even heard it. One glance at her face confirms that she has, and that she has no clue how to respond.

There are shouts from the deck, of “No!” and “Stop them!” Toph nods to him and they dash back up. Sokka gasps a little as the cold air hits him, now no longer protected by his warm furs.

Several of the White Lotus members, including Sokka’s old master, Piandao, are climbing back into one of the war balloons, with the other one nowhere to be seen. Iroh, who’s about to board with them, spots Sokka and the bundle in his arms and gives a cry of anguish.

He jumps back onto the deck of the ship and runs past the bodies of the kidnappers, several of them tied up for arrest, but several more killed where they stood.

“Zuko!”

Zuko shifts in Sokka’s arms when he hears his uncle’s voice. Then, Iroh is there beside them. 

“It’s bad,” Sokka says.

“Four of them got away,” Katara says as she and Aang come over to join them, “but we took care of the rest. The White Lotus will track the others down.”

“We’re leaving,” Sokka says, and holds Zuko even closer to his chest.

“What should we do with the ship?” Aang asks.

“I can take it back with the prisoners,” Iroh says, without moving his gaze from where Zuko’s head is nestled into Sokka’s chest. “You should get him home as soon as possible.”

The Kyoshi Warriors stay with Iroh and escort the surviving kidnappers down into the hold.

“Stay out of the second cell from the left,” Toph says to them, and they don’t question her.

Sokka feels a surge of fondness for her and the way that, without speaking about it, they’ve agreed that nobody else needs to see the evidence of what clearly happened to Zuko in there, at least not any more than the evidence of his body wrapped up in Sokka’s arms.

The ride back to the Fire Nation is quiet, but a different sort of quiet than it was on the way out. Everyone is careful to give Sokka room where he’s sitting at the back with Zuko in his lap, bundled up in Sokka’s furs and still shaking. He’s awake, Sokka knows, even though he’s not saying anything.

Katara approaches very carefully.

“Zuko,” she says, then waits until his head shifts to show that he’s listening. “Do you want me to start trying to heal you?”

There’s a pause, then Zuko nods. He shifts in Sokka’s arms to pull the coat down from his shoulders, and turns so his back is to Katara, his face pressed into Sokka’s chest. She gasps, and soon Sokka can see why: in addition to the bruises and burns that he noticed earlier, there are several bite marks on both of his shoulders.

Katara meets Sokka’s gaze as she pulls water from her pouch and begins working on Zuko’s shoulders. Neither of them says what they’re both thinking — that while Katara might be able to heal all the physical wounds Zuko has gotten, the psychological ones are going to take much, much longer.

Sokka remembers his helmet and sword, still in the cell where he found Zuko. He finds he doesn’t care. They’re both replaceable; the one thing that isn’t is the man currently curled up against his chest, his breath hot on Sokka’s neck.


	5. Chapter 5

Zuko wakes up to a throbbing pain in his head, sunlight pressing against his closed eyelids. He curls himself up tighter, knowing it’s only a matter of time before another one of his kidnappers comes in to assault him again.

Then he realizes: there’s sunlight on his face. That means he’s not in the holding cell anymore. Everything comes rushing back — Sokka entering his cell and carrying him out, flashes of fire and light on the deck of the ship, then lying in the saddle of the Avatar’s air bison as Katara moved water over his back. His whole body aches, and he groans at the pain.

“Hey, you’re awake,” comes a gentle voice from beside him.

Zuko opens his eyes. He’s in his bedchamber at the palace, wrapped in one of his robes. Someone has bandaged most of his torso and arms, where the burns and bruises were the worst. He looks up to see Sokka getting up from an armchair that he’s pulled in from the sitting room. He clearly slept in it.

“Sokka.”

Sokka smiles at him, but his eyes are clouded with concern.

“D’you want some water? You slept a day and a half.”

Zuko nods and presses a hand to his head. When Sokka returns, he helps Zuko sit up against the cushions, holds the water glass steady for him as he drinks.

When Sokka puts the glass down on the bedside table, Zuko notices his betrothal necklace sitting there, too. He reaches for it, then stops at the pain that shoots up his arm.

“You should try to stay still,” Sokka says, touching his shoulder lightly. “Katara says it’ll take a week or so for you to be back to normal.”

Zuko remembers pulling Sokka’s furs off to show Katara his wounds. Bile rises in his throat at the realization that she must have figured out what those men did to him. He wonders who else witnessed his shame and lets out a cry of anger.

“Hey!” Sokka says, and sits down on the edge of the bed. “It’s okay, it won’t be that long.”

“It’s not that,” Zuko says, and grits his teeth through the pain enough to grab the necklace off the nightstand. “How many… who else saw me? Who else knows what… what they did?”

Sokka’s face softens and he covers Zuko’s hand with his own.

“Toph is the one that found where you were. I don’t know how much she could sense. Everyone else… Katara told them it looked like you’d been beaten, that’s all. They don’t know any different.”

Zuko’s shoulders slump in relief. There’s already enough reasons in his past for his friends to hate him; he doesn’t need to add the shame of what happened to him on top of that.

“That’s not all, is it?” Sokka asks.

Zuko shakes his head. He swallows, opens his mouth, then closes it again. He looks up at Sokka and sees in his eyes that he doesn’t have to explain anything.

“I’m so sorry,” Sokka says.

Zuko looks at their joined hands, swallowing down tears. He pulls away from Sokka so he can look at the necklace in his hand.

“They broke the clasp,” Sokka says. “But I fixed it. It should be fine.”

“Will you put it on me?” Zuko asks.

“Of course.”

Zuko hands Sokka the necklace and turns around. Sokka passes it around his neck and fastens it.

Zuko’s breath quickens, and suddenly he’s not in his bed anymore, he’s on his knees in the bowels of a war ship, the governor standing above him and tightening the cloth around his throat until he blacks out. Zuko screams and grabs at the thing around his neck, yanking down until it tears away. He pitches forward and lands on his elbows, coughing and retching.

“Zuko!”

He feels Sokka next to him, hands on his shoulders.

“Zuko, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here, I’m right here. Hey, it’s okay.”

Zuko gasps and clenches his fists into the sheets. He feels the silk against his skin, completely different from the bare mattress of the cot or the cold metal of the cell floor. He blinks and slowly, slowly returns to his bedroom. He starts to cry, and by the time Sokka pulls him into his arms, he’s sobbing, the necklace clutched in his fist.

Sokka holds him to his chest and rubs circles in his back, murmuring reassurances that he’s home and he’s safe. When Zuko’s breathing slows to normal, he pulls back, staring at the necklace in his hands. The clasp is broken again.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly.

“Don’t be sorry,” Sokka says. “ _ I’m _ sorry, I should have realized that it might be a bad idea to put something around your neck.”

Zuko lets out a long, slow exhale and wipes his eyes.

“Here,” Sokka says, handing him what’s left of the glass of water and taking the necklace from him. 

Zuko empties the glass. There’s a knock on the door, and Katara pokes her head in.

“Hey, I thought I’d try and do another healing session,” she says, then spots Zuko sitting up. “Oh, you’re awake!”

Zuko finds himself looking away, feeling suddenly very naked, even though the blankets cover him completely. Katara must notice, because she asks,

“Do you want me to come back later?”

Zuko swallows.

“No, that’s okay.”

Sokka helps Zuko unwind the bandages from around his chest, lets Zuko lean on him so Katara can work on his back where the worst injuries are. Once she’s started, Zuko relaxes a little, the water soothing away some of the pain. He rests his head on Sokka’s shoulder and listens to his breathing. Katara’s hands move up his shoulders, to where one of the men left bite marks on Zuko’s skin.

“Can you turn around, Zuko?” she asks. “I want to get the rest of the burns.”

She’s adopted a clinical tone, which helps dispel some of the shame. Sokka helps him turn for her, and she bends water over his chest where several of the men burned their handprints into his skin. She moves up a little bit, but before she gets to Zuko’s neck, Sokka stops her.

“It’s just bruises, right? Let them heal on their own.”

Katara doesn’t question him. Zuko takes Sokka’s hand and squeezes it gratefully.

The pain is lessened a lot when Katara finishes — it’s settled into a dull background ache, and he can hold himself up without wincing.

“Do you want to have a shower?” Sokka asks him. “It might make you feel better.”

“Yeah.”

Katara hugs him gently and leaves them alone.

Zuko puts his arm over Sokka’s shoulders and leans on him as they walk together to the bathroom. He remembers with a little smile when Sokka first stayed in the palace and marveled at the showers — they had them some places in the Earth Kingdom, but none as nice as the ones in the Fire Nation Royal Palace. That had been before they’d started dating, before he had even fully accepted that he had feelings for men in general and Sokka specifically. He remembers studiously keeping his eyes off of Sokka’s body, because he’d only been wearing a towel as Zuko showed him how to control the temperature and the water pressure.

“Do you want me to wait outside?” Sokka asks, and Zuko nods.

Once he’s gone, Zuko drops his robe. There’s a full-length mirror on the wall opposite him, but he avoids looking at it as he turns the water on and steps into it.

He has to hold on to the wall to keep himself upright, and spends as much time as he can just seated on the little bench against one wall, letting the water wash over him. His whole body still aches, and the places where he’s been burned sting under the spray, but he pushes through the pain in order to finally feel clean.

The skin on his hands is wrinkled by the time he finishes. He steps out and, as he’s grabbing a towel, catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

It’s not as bad as he expected. The burns and bruises have mostly faded. The worst marks are around his wrists and ankles where he struggled against his bonds, and around his neck.

Zuko makes eye contact with his reflection and his hand goes up to his scar. The skin is tough under his fingertips, and he wonders if it would be better or worse for the other marks to scar over, too, to leave some kind of record. In a few weeks’ time it’ll be as if all that happened to him was a haircut; eventually even his hair will grow back and he’ll look just like he did a week ago.

He makes a little flame with his fingertips and holds it up next to the handprint-shaped burn that’s wrapped around his upper arm, where one of them grabbed him from behind. Maybe if he gives himself a real burn it’ll justify the raw ache he feels in his chest.

There’s a knock on the door and Zuko extinguishes the flame. It hits him what he was about to do and he shivers, turning away from the mirror.

“You okay?” Sokka calls. “Do you need a hand?”

“I’m okay!” he lies.

He towels himself off as quickly as he can, being careful not to look in the mirror again. Sokka is waiting for him with some clean clothes.

“I grabbed these, I know they’re your favorite,” he says, handing Zuko the loose-fitting pants and shirt that he likes to wear on his days off.

He helps Zuko dress, his hands gentle as he guides Zuko’s sore limbs into the clothing. Zuko turns towards him and takes Sokka’s hands in his own, meeting his gaze. All his captors had gold eyes like his own, fire bender eyes, but Sokka’s are bright blue like the ocean he was born on, and Zuko anchors himself to them.

He leans in and Sokka meets him halfway, kissing him so gently it’s like he’s afraid Zuko is going to break. When they pull away, Zuko finds his eyes again. Sokka pushes a lock of Zuko’s hair out of his face, then runs his fingertips over his scar.

“I love you,” Sokka says.

Zuko leans into Sokka’s hand.

“I love you, too.”

Sokka smiles at him, wider this time.

“Let’s get you something to eat. You must be starving.”

* * *

As predicted, Katara is able to heal Zuko almost completely within a week or so, and by a month all his injuries are gone. Sokka can tell, though, that he’s by no means over it.

There’s a shadow underneath his good eye that only seems to deepen with each passing day. Sokka knows he’s not sleeping well, because several times a night he wakes up to Zuko talking in his sleep. Sometimes he’s cursing at someone, but sometimes he’s begging someone to stop. Sokka always rolls towards him and rubs his back or his hair until he gets quiet again, but more than once when he’s tried to do this Zuko will shove him away, screaming.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko says when he inevitably wakes up and realizes it’s only Sokka. “Shit, I’m sorry, I thought you were—”

“I know,” Sokka says soothingly. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

And sometimes, just sometimes, Zuko will pull Sokka’s arm around himself as he goes back to sleep. Sokka always lets Zuko initiate any intimacy between them, even though he aches to pull Zuko close to him, to trail kisses down his body and make love to him like they used to.

Zuko hasn’t told him everything that happened to him, but he does share bits and pieces, and they never fail to make Sokka’s blood boil — the tea that they used to cut off his fire bending, the way that the governor liked to choke him, the cruel things they said to him about his father and his legacy. Other parts Sokka intuits on his own by noticing the way Zuko flinches whenever anyone uses his title, or how he shrinks away when too many people are too close to him at once. Sokka does his best to mitigate what triggers he can — he talks to the Palace staff and other people around them about avoiding Zuko’s title and giving him as much space as possible. He can’t eliminate everything, though, and sometimes he finds Zuko alone in a corner, his whole body tense and his breathing quickened with panic. Those times, Sokka just sits next to him and holds him through it.

There are some good days, too, when Zuko smiles like he used to, laughs at Sokka’s jokes and once or twice even makes one himself. He’ll pull Sokka into kisses as though nothing has changed, run his hands over Sokka’s chest and arms and back, but always stop before going any further.

Until now. They’re in bed after dinner, and Sokka has just broken the news that he has to leave for a week to join aid discussions between the Northern and Southern Water Tribes. Zuko winces a little — the only reason the Southern Water Tribe needs aid from their brethren in the North is because of the damage inflicted on them during the Hundred Year War.

“Stop that,” Sokka says, before Zuko can say anything. “You don’t need to feel guilty for things that happened before you were born.”

“You know if you need money—”

“I know. It’s not really about money, it’s about inter-tribal relations. And those were already not great before Sozin, I’m told.”

Zuko nods.

“Okay,” he says. He reaches out and touches Sokka’s face, his hand warm against Sokka’s skin. “Be careful, will you? They might go for you this time.”

He’s referring to the four kidnappers who escaped their raid. The White Lotus was unable to capture them, but they’re wanted men across all four nations now. Sokka knows the fact that they’re still out there prevents Zuko from ever feeling completely safe. It doesn’t help that one of the four is the governor.

“I’ll be careful,” he assures him. “Besides, I’d like to see them try and take me now that they don’t have surprise on their side.”

Zuko smiles at him. He leans into Sokka and Sokka follows suit, closing the distance between them and meeting Zuko’s lips with his. He feels Zuko sigh and soften into him. Zuko presses his whole body into Sokka’s, holding Sokka’s face in both his hands. Sokka reaches up to touch Zuko’s hair, which has started to grow out again and now hangs past his ears when he lets it down. It’s smooth against his fingers, soft from the oil Zuko rubs in it after showers.

There’s something feverish in the way Zuko kisses him, as though he’s afraid Sokka will disappear. His hands are moving over Sokka’s body, and they go further this time than they have in the past month, sliding up Sokka’s shirt to touch him, skin on skin.

“Can you take this off?” Zuko asks, tugging at the hem of Sokka’s shirt.

“Of course,” Sokka says, and hurries to oblige.

Zuko nudges Sokka so he’s lying on his back, then straddles Sokka’s waist. Sokka gazes up at him and can’t help but grin to himself.

“What?” Zuko asks.

“You’re beautiful,” Sokka says. 

Zuko blushes and ducks down to kiss him. Sokka touches Zuko’s face, running his thumb along Zuko’s cheek. Zuko breaks their kiss and, shooting Sokka a little smile, moves further down, pressing his lips to the hollow of Sokka’s jaw. Sokka moans softly.

Zuko’s hands are all over his body, running down to hold Sokka’s thigh as he wraps his legs around Zuko’s waist. His mouth finds Sokka’s nipple and his tongue darts out, pulling another moan from Sokka’s chest. He’s missed this — the feeling of Zuko’s body against his own, the way that he knows all of Sokka’s most sensitive places and goes right for them.

Their first time together Zuko was adorably timid and awkward, something that made a lot more sense when he later admitted that it was his first time with anyone.

“I only ever dated Mai before you,” he said when Sokka looked surprised, “and we were both such closet cases, it was never going to be very physical. Shit, can you imagine if we’d never figured it out and gotten  _ married? _ ”

But he grew into his confidence, and it wasn’t long before he was learning Sokka’s body with the same determination that he brought to everything else he did.

Zuko sits up and pulls his shirt over his head. Sokka can’t help but stare up at him, at the movements of his chest and arm muscles as he tosses it to the side. Zuko notices him staring and blushes a little, then takes Sokka’s hands and puts them on his chest.

“You’re okay?” Sokka asks.

Zuko nods, ducks down to kiss him again.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. Just don’t, um, don’t grab me. Need to feel like I can stop, if I want.”

“Of course,” Sokka says. “Anything you want.”

Zuko smiles breathlessly and goes back to kissing down Sokka’s chest. Sokka’s cock is hard in his pants and he knows Zuko can feel it against him, but he doesn’t push him towards it, letting Zuko set whatever pace he wants to. He can feel Zuko getting hard against his leg and he moans louder at that.

Zuko looks up from where he’s been kissing Sokka’s stomach and grins at him. He palms Sokka’s erection through the fabric of his pants and Sokka arches up into him.

“Gods, Zuko, yes…”

Zuko pulls off first Sokka’s pants, then his own, then crawls back up to lie next to Sokka, taking his face in his hands and kissing him again. He presses his body to Sokka’s and their cocks rub up against each other, slick with precum. Sokka runs his hand up and down Zuko’s arm, feeling the warmth of his skin and the way his muscles move. Zuko hooks their legs together and grabs at Sokka’s hair as though to pull him even closer. They’re rutting into each other and it feels good, but it’s not enough.

As though reading Sokka’s mind, Zuko reaches between them and wraps a hand around Sokka’s cock. Sokka whines at the back of his throat and thrusts into Zuko’s grip. He feels Zuko smile against his mouth and start to move his hand. He touches Sokka like he’s the only thing in the world that matters to him, like all he wants to do for the rest of his life is love him.

When Sokka comes it’s with a strangled gasp, hands clutching at sheets and sparks in front of his eyes. For a few moments he can’t do anything but lie there, panting, until he starts to come back down.

Zuko has grabbed a cloth to wipe his hand off, and hands it to Sokka so he can clean up his stomach. He crawls back into Sokka’s arms and pulls him into another kiss.

“Gods, Zuko, you’re amazing, I love you so much.”

“Me, too,” Zuko says softly, and presses his face into Sokka’s chest.

Sokka can feel Zuko’s cock, still hard against his hip.

“D’you want me to do it for you, too?” he asks, tracing his fingers over Zuko’s back.

Zuko swallows, then says,

“Yeah, um… not your hand. Can you, can you use your mouth?”

Sokka doesn’t ask why, just nods.

“ _ Yes _ ,” he says, and sees in Zuko’s face that he hears the heat of desire in Sokka’s voice.

He very gently turns Zuko onto his back and first just kisses him for a while, feeling Zuko whine beneath him. Then, when it seems like he can feel Zuko’s whole body thrumming with desire, he moves down, trailing kisses down his chest. Zuko’s cock is hard against his stomach. Sokka licks up the precum that’s leaked onto his skin, then wraps his mouth around just the tip of Zuko’s cock, flicking his tongue out a little to make Zuko moan and arch up into him. Zuko bites his lip the way that he always does when Sokka makes him feel good. Sokka widens his jaw to take Zuko in further, and goes down all in one go, until Zuko’s cock is touching the back of his throat. Zuko’s hand finds his hair and tangles in it, his legs opening around Sokka’s head.

He takes Zuko apart in the way that only he knows how — but very carefully, gently, watching his face and his body for any sign that he wants to stop. On the contrary, though, Zuko is writhing underneath him, his breaths coming in gasps and moans.

“Oh, gods, Sokka, oh, shit,  _ yes _ .”

He’s getting close, Sokka can tell. Then,

“Sokka… look at me. I’m gonna come, Sokka, please, I need to see your eyes.”

Once again, Sokka doesn’t question him. Without pausing, he looks up and meets Zuko’s gaze. He holds eye contact as he pulls Zuko through his orgasm, as he swallows his cum and pulls back. Zuko is still gazing up at him when Sokka crawls back up to kiss him.

Zuko grabs him and pulls him in close.

“Okay?” Sokka asks him.

“Yes,” Zuko says breathlessly, and he’s smiling. “Yes, Sokka, that was so good.”

Sokka kisses him again. He runs his fingers through Zuko’s hair and Zuko sighs and nestles into him.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

* * *

The next morning, as they’re sitting down to breakfast, there’s a frown creasing Zuko’s forehead.

“What’s wrong?” Sokka asks, putting his hand over Zuko’s across the table. “Was last night too much?”

“No,” Zuko says, meeting his gaze. “No, it’s not that. I haven’t been to see Azula in a while.”

Sokka snorts and almost rolls his eyes.

“Not like you’ve been dealing with anything.”

Zuko smiles at him, but it’s strained.

“I should go soon,” is all he says.

Sokka purposefully takes a too-big bite of food to give himself time before he responds. This is a point of contention between them. Sokka says that Zuko doesn’t owe his sister anything after all she did to him; Zuko says she’s still family and it wasn’t her fault. Sokka says that Zuko sorted himself out and she could have too; Zuko says that she never got the chance to be out from under their father’s thumb. Inevitably, they reach the stalemate that Sokka can’t stop him from going no matter how bad of an idea he thinks it is. In fairness, it’s gotten better over the years. At first she would refuse to see him, then she would see him only to hurl insults at him. But the therapy at Szeto Memorial Psychiatric Center seems to be pretty good, because in the past year she stopped and just listened to Zuko talk to her, tell her about his life and the world since the war. Sokka knows that he keeps some things back, including their relationship, for fear that she’ll react the way their father conditioned them to -- with disgust. A month before Zuko’s kidnapping, she started talking back to him, asking questions and sometimes telling him things about her week.

Sokka finally swallows and says,

“Will you go before I leave? I want to know you’re okay.”

Zuko smiles at him, and this time it’s open and easy.

“Yes. I’ll go today.”

Sokka squeezes his hand and Zuko squeezes back.

He leaves later that morning. Sokka spends the time that he’s gone packing and re-packing. He doesn’t need a lot, since most of his cold weather clothes are at home at the South Pole anyway, but he can’t manage to sit still for longer than a minute or so.

Zuko returns in the afternoon. Sokka runs up to meet him. There’s an expression on his face that Sokka can’t read.

“What happened? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Zuko says, then amends, “I mean, I don’t think anything’s wrong.”

He seems to be puzzling out his own emotions. Sokka takes his hand and they go sit in the courtyard.

“We were talking again, and she asked me where I’d been. I think she actually seemed concerned. So I told her what happened.”

“You told her that they…?”

“That they raped me?” Zuko says, and there’s a hardness in his voice when he says it. “No, I told her they kidnapped me, but she kept asking questions, she’s always been so good at knowing when I’m hiding things, and I kept dodging them but I think she figured it out. Then she got this look that she used to get when she was angry, like she was going to murder someone on the spot. She stopped talking and said she wanted to be left alone.”

“That’s… worrying,” Sokka says.

Zuko laughs a little.

“I talked to her doctor and she says she’s been doing really well. I asked them to update me if anything changes. I’m not sure what else to do.”

Sokka kisses his cheek.

“There’s not much else you can do.”

Zuko nods.

“You know what else? When I was on my way out of her room, she said she was sorry.”

“What?”

“Yeah. She said ‘I’m sorry, Zuko.’ I’ve never heard her apologize and sound like she actually meant it.”

“Sorry for what? For what happened to you or for everything she did?”

“I don’t know.”

Zuko meets Sokka’s gaze, then leans in and kisses him.

“We don’t have to talk about my sister anymore. Tell me more about the book you were reading. It sounded good.”

Sokka smiles at him and accepts the subject change. Zuko will talk more about Azula when he wants to, and it’s okay if now isn’t that time.


	6. Chapter 6

The Palace feels quieter without Sokka around. It isn’t, technically — it’s still full of people and there’s plenty for Zuko to do — but on his own it feels empty. The days aren’t bad. He manages to fill them with things to do, meetings with advisors and ambassadors. When he doesn’t have anything scheduled he trains in the yard, practicing both his swordsmanship and his bending until he’s so exhausted he nearly collapses into bed.

Uncle Iroh is staying at the palace this week. He claims it’s just because he misses Zuko and his home, but Zuko suspects that Sokka may have written to tell him when he’d be gone so Iroh could come look after him. If that’s the case, Zuko can’t bring himself to be angry, because it does help. He sits in on meetings, watches Zuko train, or sometimes they just sit together and talk, about politics or tea or their own years together when Zuko was young.

“I’ve never told you this,” Uncle Iroh says one afternoon as they’re sitting at the pai sho table together and Zuko is trying not to lose every single game, “but I really admire you.”

Zuko drops the tile he’s holding on the ground and leans down to pick it up.

“What?”

“Yes,” his uncle says. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

Zuko doesn’t say anything, just waits for Iroh to continue. Iroh takes a sip of his tea and places another tile, then says,

“You went through so much, so young, and you still came out of it a good, compassionate person. Not everybody can say that.”

“Not everybody had you to help them,” Zuko says, and places the tile he picked up from the ground.

Uncle Iroh smiles at the compliment, then turns serious again and continues,

“And what you survived last month… you’ve never turned cruel, never broken.”

Zuko stares at his hands.

“I’m not sure I haven’t,” he says softly, and shoves down the feeling of panic as he remembers the men’s hands on his body. “I’m not sure I’m not broken.”

“Trauma changes us,” Iroh responds. “It’s up to you to decide what to do from there.”

He grins, and places another tile.

“I win again!”

* * *

Nighttime is harder. The sun is gone so he has nothing to ground himself to. When he has nightmares he wakes up alone, tangled in his sheets and drenched in sweat. Sometimes even the sight of his bed chambers shrouded in shadow isn’t enough to calm him, and he has to summon fire to his cupped palms in order to reassure himself that he can. After nearly setting the bed on fire one night when he dozes off still holding the flame, he starts setting candles beside his bed and lighting one every time he wakes up so that he can watch it dance until he falls back asleep. It helps, but it doesn’t stop the nightmares.

It’s the night before Sokka is due to return, and he’s been tossing and turning for hours. Every time he starts to doze off, his body feels like it’s rocking, and he jolts awake, convinced that he’s back below decks on the ship, about to be assaulted again.

He’s lit a candle and watched it burn, and now it’s almost done and he still hasn’t managed to sleep. He watches the last of the wax melt away and the flame peter out.

Maybe a walk will help. He slides out of bed and puts on some clothes, pulling the hood of his cloak up to cover his hair. He considers waking one of the Kyoshi Warriors to come with him, but he decides he’d rather be alone.

He’s not sure where he’s going, just lets his feet carry him wherever they want to go. He finds himself walking around the outside of the palace, climbing the hills and looking out over the city. He breathes in the night air and tells himself that he’s safe here, that the men who attacked him will never hurt him again. But it’s hard to believe himself when he remembers that the governor and three of his so-called “allies” are still missing, in hiding somewhere, maybe plotting the next thing they’ll do to enact revenge on him.

Then there’s also the fact that, if he’s honest, he’s never felt safe here. The whole place is teeming with memories of his childhood and all the time he spent both terrified of his father and also desperate for his approval.

He keeps walking, and before he’s realized what he’s doing he’s at the prison. The guards in front look at him but don’t say a word as he passes them. For a brief moment he considers asking where his kidnappers are being held, but then he remembers that after their trials they were sent to Boiling Rock. Besides, he knows they’re not who he’s here to see.

He hasn’t been here in several years, but he finds his father’s cell without needing to think about it. To his surprise, his father is awake when he walks in.

“Ah, Fire Lord, to what do I owe this honor?”

Zuko flinches at his title, and Ozai doesn’t miss it. He smirks. Zuko takes a deep breath to steel himself.

“What do you know about the Governor of Shuhon?”

“Governor Yuzen?” his father asks, his expression unreadable. “He was a good ally. Kept his citizens in line. I can’t imagine he’s enjoyed the regime change.”

Zuko shoves down the image of the smile on the governor’s face when he drugged him and says,

“He’s missing. Do you know where he might be? Did he visit anywhere outside of the Fire Nation?”

“Oh, he’s missing, is he?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure he’s not on the run?”

Zuko doesn’t respond to this.

“Are you sure you’re not chasing him down for what he did to you?”

Zuko takes a step back.

“How do you —?”

Ozai smiles. 

“People talk.”

Zuko swallows and tells himself that “people” don’t know the full story of what happened to him, and therefore his father doesn’t. He can’t.

“Where would he hide?” he demands.

“Even if I did know,” his father says, leaning forward inside his cage, “I wouldn’t tell you. I hope you don’t catch him, so he can come back and finish the job.”

Zuko’s throat starts closing up. His father stands and comes right up to the bars, and Zuko takes another involuntary step back.

“You betrayed your country when I was on the verge of greatness. Whoever takes you off the throne will be a hero.”

Zuko starts to feel the walls closing in on him, but he still hears his father finish,

“I should have killed you when your grandfather told me to.”

Barely aware of what he’s doing, Zuko stumbles out the door and slams it behind him. He can hear his father laughing and he sinks to the ground, panic tensing his muscles and speeding up his breaths until he’s hyperventilating on the floor of the hallway.

He doesn’t know how long the panic attack lasts, only that when he comes down from it he’s still alone. He shakily stands up and wraps his cloak tighter around himself, pulling the hood so it’s almost covering his face. He leaves quickly, not speaking to the guards he passes.

When he gets outside the sun is rising.

* * *

It’s early afternoon when Sokka gets back to the palace, and the servants inform him that the Fire Lord is still in bed. 

Sokka intends to wake him up, but his face looks the most peaceful it has in over a month, so he doesn’t. He waits until Zuko starts to stir, an hour later.

“Good morning,” Sokka says. “Sleep well?”

Zuko sits up and looks at him and his whole face lights up.

“You’re back!”

He grabs Sokka and pulls him into a hug. Sokka holds him and feels Zuko’s body relaxing into his own. He kisses him, long and slow, then asks,

“Are you alright? You usually get up so early.”

“I didn’t sleep last night,” Zuko says. He leans into Sokka, tucks his head into Sokka’s shoulder. “I, um, I went to go talk to my father.”

“You  _ what? _ ”

He turns Zuko around to face him, panic coming into his voice.

“Why would you do that?! You  _ know _ he’s going to hurt you!”

Zuko looks down.

“Please don’t yell at me,” he says softly, and Sokka immediately regrets it.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice gentle. “You’re right, I’m sorry for yelling. I just get scared you’re going to get hurt.”

“I know.” Zuko leans back into Sokka’s shoulder. “I don’t know why I did it. I just — I never feel safe here unless I’m with you.”

“I’m here now,” Sokka says, and strokes his hair. “I’m not leaving for a while, not if I can help it.”

They’re in the middle of dinner when a servant approaches.

“Sir,” he says, bowing (he’s one of the ones who’s better about remembering to avoid Zuko’s title), “a message just came in from Szeto Memorial. Urgent.”

He hands Zuko a scroll. Zuko reads it and looks up at Sokka.

“Azula escaped.”


	7. Chapter 7

The reports come in slowly over the next few weeks. Sightings of Azula in different parts of the Fire Nation. A break-in at Boiling Rock, several of the prisoners left with lightning wounds. Then, rumors that she’s been seen further abroad — Ba Sing Se, off the coast of Chameleon Bay, even near the North Pole. Zuko’s made sure that her wanted posters request not to hurt her, but also say that she is dangerous.

“How could I be so stupid?”

“You’re not stupid,” Sokka says. “She just manipulated you.”

“I should’ve known she was lying to me. I just — I really thought she was getting better.”

Sokka kisses him gently.

“It’s not your fault.”

Maybe it shows on Zuko’s face that he doesn’t really believe him, because Sokka says,

“Listen. What can I do to take your mind off of it?”

Zuko shrugs. Uncle Iroh has gone back to Ba Sing Se, and he doesn’t really feel like tea and pai sho anyway. Suddenly, Sokka sits up.

“I know! Fight me.”

Zuko laughs.

“What?”

“Fight me. Spar with me.”

“Sokka, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” He cocks an eyebrow. “Afraid you’ll lose?”

“No, I’m afraid of hurting your feelings. I don’t think you know what you’re getting into, babe.”

Sokka smirks at him, and Zuko knows there’s no talking him out of it.

They use wooden practice swords and protective padding from the armory. It feels very unfair to Zuko, as he watches Sokka swish his fake blade around.

“You know I’ve been training since I was little, right?” Zuko warns.

“Mm-hm,” Sokka says, then looks up and grins at him. Zuko’s stomach does a backflip.

“I’m not going to go easy on you just because you’re pretty,” Zuko says. They face each other, start circling, sizing each other up. Zuko tells himself he’s not looking at Sokka’s bare arms, brown against the grey of his padding.

“Sweetheart,” Sokka says, “I once took down two comet-powered fire benders with one hand behind me and a broken leg.”

He lunges forward and Zuko quickly parries his strike. The wooden swords make a satisfying  _ clack _ against each other as they fight, feet scraping the stone floor and bodies spinning and dodging around each other. Sokka is fast, and more skilled than Zuko counted on. Zuko has also underestimated how clever he is under pressure. He clearly knows all the correct forms and moves but he combines them in ways Zuko would never think to do.

“What’s wrong, babe?” Sokka asks, grinning as he twists his blade around one of Zuko’s, forcing it out of his hand. It clatters to the floor and Sokka kicks it away. “I thought you said you wouldn’t go easy.”

Zuko grabs his remaining sword with both hands and lunges at him. Sokka dodges back. Zuko’s been on the defensive so far, but now he switches tacks. He comes at Sokka with a series of quick blows, forcing him to continue backing up. Sokka ducks and somersaults out of the way, sweeping his sword at Zuko’s legs to force him to jump. Zuko manages to swing at Sokka as he’s on his way down, and Sokka loses his balance. Sokka falls to the ground and Zuko stumbles back into the wall, and both lose their breath for a bit. 

Zuko takes a moment, watching Sokka do the same before getting up. Zuko wipes sweat from his forehead and can’t help but notice the way that Sokka’s muscles move, the way that his hand looks so gentle as he tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear. Sokka looks up and sees him staring.

“Enjoying the view?” he teases, getting to his feet and gripping his practice sword again.

“Just thought you might need a breather,” Zuko returns. “Or maybe you want to stop.”

Sokka smiles and winks at him and Zuko can feel himself blushing even as he moves his legs into a ready stance.

“Nah.”

He jumps at Zuko and Zuko has to spin away. He stumbles and his foot kicks against his second sword. In one movement, Zuko ducks down to grab it and then pushes himself off the ground into a flip out of Sokka’s reach.

He lets Sokka go on the offensive again, watching carefully. Then, for one split second, Sokka shifts wrong and leaves himself open. Zuko lunges and knocks his sword to the ground. Sokka stumbles onto his back again and Zuko stands over him, pointing both swords at his neck.

They’re both breathing heavily, but Sokka, smirking, looks up at him through his eyelashes and fucking  _ winks _ again. Zuko pauses, his heart pumping in his chest as he nearly stops breathing at the way that those blue eyes flash at him, and in that time Sokka grabs his sword from beside him and swings it in an arc, knocking both of Zuko’s weapons to the ground. He springs up and points his sword at Zuko, then very gently taps him over the heart with it.

“I win.”

Zuko splutters.

“I — what — that’s not winning! I won and you fucking cheated!”

Sokka smiles at him and kisses his cheek.

“That’s just being creative,” he says. “Not my fault you can’t handle a pretty face.”

Zuko scowls at him.

“I thought we did this to make me feel better.”

“And it worked. How many times did you think about your sister?”

Zuko frowns, then admits, “None.”

“Exactly. Come on, let’s go shower. I’ll make it up to you.”

* * *

They’ve been showering together again. Zuko asked first, after noticing that Sokka was avoiding bringing it up. The shower is big enough that if he’s having a day when he doesn’t want to be touched, they can stand a little ways away from each other. Today, though, he rubs soap over Sokka’s body, feeling the planes of his chest and back beneath his hands. Sokka kisses him under the spray, cupping his face and pressing their bodies together.

There’s a dinner with some nobles later, but they have a lot of time until then. They dry off but don’t get dressed, instead lying next to each other on the bed and kissing for a long time.

“So how are you gonna make it up to me?” Zuko asks after a while.

Sokka grins at him, the same smile that undid him before.

“Whatever you want, baby.”

“Whatever I want?”

“Mm-hm.” Sokka kisses him. “What do you want to do, Zuko?”

Zuko bites his lip and thinks for a minute. What he really wants is to have Sokka inside him, but they still haven’t done that since his kidnapping and just the thought of it brings up the memory of the way those men used his body. But…

“Can I fuck you?” he asks.

They don’t do it that way as often, but it’s not the first time. Sokka groans and says,

“Shit, yeah. Are you sure? That’s okay?”

Zuko nods. “Yeah, it’s… they didn’t…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence but he can see in Sokka’s face that he understands. Sokka sits up and goes into the nightstand to grab the bottle of lube that’s inside. He hands it to Zuko and kisses him, then lies back against the pillows. His hair is spread out around him like a halo. Zuko leans down and kisses him and Sokka wraps his legs around him, pulling him in so their hips grind together.

Zuko coats his fingers in lube and presses them to Sokka’s asshole. Sokka moans as he slowly works his index finger in, moving it back and forth to open him up. When he’s worked up to two, he moves them around, searching for the spot inside that’ll make Sokka feel good. He knows he’s found it when Sokka curses and squeezes around his fingers.

“Fuck, Zuko, just like that, that feels so good—”

Zuko cuts him off by kissing him. Sokka moans into his mouth and Zuko feels a spike of arousal shoot straight to his cock. He works a third finger in as he trails kisses down Sokka’s chest, feeling his breath speed up beneath him.

By the time he pulls his fingers out and starts lubing his cock up, he’s desperate, barely able to stop himself from rutting into the sheets. Sokka is smiling at him again, looking up at him through half-open eyes.

“Ready?” Zuko asks.

“ _ Yes _ ,” Sokka says. He reaches up and touches Zuko’s face, and Zuko turns his head to press a kiss into Sokka’s palm. “Want you inside me, Zuko.”

Sokka turns over and gets on his hands and knees, which is how he usually likes to bottom. Zuko guides his cock in, pressing into Sokka’s asshole as slowly as he can stand. He holds Sokka’s hips for leverage and pushes, and Sokka moans and leans back into him.

He leans down over Sokka as he fucks him, holding onto his shoulders and pressing kisses into his back. Sokka turns his head and Zuko meets him in a panting, half-open kiss, messy and awkward but so, so good. He can feel Sokka’s moans vibrating through his body as he speeds up, hitting his prostate with every other thrust.

He reaches a hand between Sokka’s legs and wraps it around his cock, starts stroking it in time with his thrusts. He pushes Sokka’s hair away from his neck and kisses him there, nips gently at his ear. Sokka reaches back and grabs his head to hold him in place, then quickly lets go.

“Sorry, shouldn’t grab, wasn’t thinking—”

“‘S okay,” Zuko says, his voice breathy with his building orgasm. “It’s — you can hold me.”

Sokka puts his hand back on Zuko’s head, but it’s gentler this time, to make it clear that if Zuko wants to pull away, he can. Zuko presses his face into Sokka’s neck and breathes him in. He smells like sweat and sharp arctic air and safety, and Zuko loses himself, comes with a small yell, pressing his body into Sokka’s as though he wants to crawl inside him.

Sokka comes a few moments after him, all over Zuko’s hand and the sheets below them. They collapse on top of each other, Zuko barely aware of himself enough to pull out so that he can lie on Sokka’s back.

After a while, Sokka moves gently out from under him, grabbing a rag to wipe his cum off his stomach and Zuko’s hands. He crawls back into bed and pulls Zuko into his arms.

“Good?” he asks.

“Yes. Good.”

“Am I forgiven?”

Even though Zuko can’t see him, he can hear the smirk in his voice.

“I suppose.”

* * *

Zuko’s having nightmares again. Sokka wakes up in the middle of the night to find Zuko beside him, curled up in a ball and shaking.

“No, stop it! Please, stop! Leave him alone!”

Sokka reaches out and touches Zuko’s shoulder. When he doesn’t react, he shakes him a little.

“Zuko. Zuko, wake up, you’re dreaming.”

Zuko jerks awake, panting. It takes a moment, but then he turns to face Sokka in the dark.

“Shit. Shit, Sokka, is that you?”

“Yeah,” Sokka murmurs. “Yeah, it’s me. You were having another nightmare.”

“I was.” It’s not a question. “Fuck, Sokka, it was — you were there.”

“I was?”

Zuko moves so he’s in Sokka's arms, face pressed into his chest. Sokka kisses his forehead and he grips Sokka’s arms, anchoring himself in reality. Then he says,

“They were hurting you.”

Sokka pushes a lock of hair out of Zuko’s eyes.

“It wasn’t real. I’m right here.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re safe, Zuko. I promise.”

Zuko kisses him.

“Okay.”

This time, when he falls asleep in Sokka’s arms, his face is still, and he doesn’t tense up at invisible attackers. Sokka takes a lot longer to fall back asleep, rubbing circles into Zuko’s back and listening to him breathing.

He’d been getting better for a while, but now he seems to have taken another downturn. Sokka can’t help but worry, even though he knows from his own experiences after the war that recovery isn’t always straightforward. He wishes he could reach into Zuko’s head and pull the suffering out, or in lieu of that, track down the men that did this to him and make them pay.

He doesn’t think living here helps. All the people around them look like his captors, Sokka realizes, wearing Fire Nation red, and Zuko has said himself that he never really felt safe in the palace, not even growing up.

The next morning, Sokka does find a solution to one problem. Zuko is holding his necklace, which Sokka fixed again after he tore it off in his panic. He’s been keeping it in his pocket.

“I wish I could wear this,” Zuko says.

“I don’t mind,” Sokka says.

“ _ I _ do,” Zuko responds. “I hate that they took it from me.”

“I got it back,” Sokka says, but he knows Zuko doesn’t mean it literally — he hates that they took his ability to wear it without having a panic attack. Wearing it as a bracelet doesn’t work either, because that reminds Zuko of the handcuffs that chained him to the floor.

“Wait, I know!”

Zuko looks at him quizzically but gives the necklace over when Sokka holds out his hand for it. He reaches up to where Zuko’s hair is tied with a ribbon and undoes it, then replaces it with the necklace, wrapped around several times to make up for its extra length. Zuko smiles at him, then turns to look in the mirror that’s hanging on the wall.

“Clever,” he says.

“I have my moments.”

Zuko kisses him and takes his hand and they walk to the garden. Mai is visiting, which she does often to see Ty Lee anyway. Sokka’s noticed that she seems to be around even more frequently since Zuko’s attack. He’s glad she is: she’s one of the few people besides Sokka that Zuko doesn’t have his guard up around.

While Zuko and Ty Lee play cards by the pond, Mai comes to sit beside Sokka under a tree.

“How’s he doing?” she asks.

“Better, I guess,” Sokka says. “I don’t know. It’s up and down.”

“It’s good he has you,” she says. “He used to be so angry all the time. We both did.”

Sokka looks at her, but her expression is unreadable.

“I’m glad he had you,” he says. “And I’m glad he has you now.”

She smiles at him.

“Me, too.”

She looks over at where Zuko and Ty Lee have begun a heated argument about the house rules that Zuko has insisted they play by. There’s a softness in Mai’s face that Sokka’s never seen before.

“It was hard, growing up,” she says. “I think by the time I first got an inkling I liked women, I was already so good at repressing all my feelings that repressing that was easy.”

Sokka looks at Zuko, tries to imagine what it was like for him to realize for the first time that he wasn’t straight. 

“Our relationship was nice, actually. We really did love each other, we just didn’t know that being in love felt like more than that. But if I had to date a man I could’ve done worse than Zuko.”

“I’ll never really know what it’s like,” Sokka says, “to have to hide that part of yourself.”

“I figured it out a lot earlier than he did, I think,” Mai says. “But he never had boys his age around him. I loved Ty Lee from the moment we first met, I just didn’t let myself feel it. Do you know, I was going to marry him? I would've had to. But after the war, you would be around and he’d just  _ moon _ after you, and I knew.”

Sokka hadn’t noticed at the time, too busy trying to make his ill-fated relationship with Suki work. Now that he looks back, though, he can remember Zuko always being around, seeming to turn away whenever Sokka looked at him as though he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

He gazes at Zuko and Zuko looks up, flashes a smile at him. Ty Lee looks up at them too and grins. Without warning, she runs up and tackles Mai to the ground, kissing her and giggling.

Zuko is a little more reserved when he comes to sit beside Sokka, but he puts a hand on Sokka’s hip and kisses his cheek.

“Are you bonding over me being a shit boyfriend?”

“Yep,” Sokka says. “But you haven’t dumped me via letter and run off without saying goodbye, so I think Mai has me beat.”

Mai snorts and Zuko groans.

“I’m never going to fucking live that down, am I?”

There’s a commotion from outside. A guard comes running into the courtyard and hastily bows to Zuko.

“My L— Sir, Princess Azula is here.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not really sure how to tag for this but this chapter has a scene in a mental institution. Nothing violent happens in the scene but I imagine it could still be triggering for someone.

Zuko stands up slowly.

“What is she doing here?”

“She says she’s turning herself in, Sir,” the guard says. “Shall we arrest her?”

“No,” Zuko says slowly. “No, bring her here.”

His expression is unreadable. Sokka stands up, too, and puts a hand on Zuko’s arm.

“You don’t have to talk to her if you don’t want to,” he says.

Zuko nods. “I know.”

Sokka doesn’t have any of his weapons on him, and he feels stupid for it. He gets into a fighting stance anyway, and he feels Ty Lee and Mai do the same on Zuko’s other side. He sees a flash of light out of the corner of his eye — Mai’s knives. At least there are plenty of guards around — if Azula tries to attack Zuko, she won’t be able to get within a few yards of him before she’s struck down.

She’s escorted in by four guards. Sokka hasn’t seen Azula since the war. She looks completely different, and not just because she’s twenty-one now, a woman instead of the girl he and his friends fought against so many times. Something’s changed in her eyes — where there used to be cruelty, now it looks like there’s just sadness.

“Azula.”

“Zuko.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Like I told your guards, I’m turning myself in.”

“For running off?”

“No. For murder.”

There’s a palpable tension in the air, and Sokka inches closer to Zuko, ready to jump in front of him if he needs to.

“What are you talking about?” Zuko asks.

Azula holds her hand out to one of the guards.

“May I have my bag, please? You’ve searched it. There are no weapons.”

The guard looks up at Zuko, who gives a tiny nod. Sokka keeps looking between Zuko and his sister, trying to figure out what her game is. The guard hands Azula her bag and she reaches in and pulls out… hair.

Four black topknots, to be exact. She throws them on the ground one by one and says, in order,

“Lieutenant Yen. His body is under Lake Laogai in Ba Sing Se. Admiral Shozu. In the mountains near the Northern Air Temple. Count Ukusai. Uninhabited island in Chameleon Bay. Governor Yuzen. I tracked him down in the Si Wong Desert. You probably won’t find his body.”

Lastly, she pulls out copies of the wanted posters that have been circulating for the four men.

“You won’t need these anymore.”

There’s silence after her display. Sokka has been staring at her, but he feels Zuko tense up beside him and turns to him. Zuko’s whole body is rigid and his eyes are unfocused, pointed at the posters but not seeing.

“Everyone leave!” Sokka says, just barely keeping himself from shouting. “Her, take her—” he’s so angry he wants to tell the guards to put Azula in prison and toss the key into the ocean, but he knows what Zuko would want. “Take her back to Szeto Memorial. Tell the doctors what happened.”

The guards obey without a word. Azula is staring at her brother as though she wants to say something else to him, but she goes quietly with the guards. 

“Zuko, what’s wrong?” Mai asks.

“He’s having a panic attack,” Sokka says, forcing himself to keep his voice calm. “Get rid of those things.”

He points to the hair and the wanted posters that Azula dropped. Ty Lee scoops them up.

“Should we leave?” she asks quietly.

“No,” Zuko says. He sways like he’s going to collapse, but Sokka catches him and helps him sit down on the grass. “Please stay.”

Mai and Ty Lee sit a few feet away from them. Sokka rubs Zuko’s back and murmurs to him until the tension leaves his shoulders and he relaxes again.

“Hey,” Sokka says. “Hey, you’re okay.”

Zuko wipes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Mai and Ty Lee are watching them, clearly a little unsure of what to do. Zuko looks up at them and gives them a small smile.

“This is what I’m like now,” he says acerbically. “Welcome to the party.”

Mai reaches out and takes his hand.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” she says.

“My sister used to get panic attacks when we were younger,” Ty Lee says. “She told me therapy really helped.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Zuko says, then smirks. “I hear the doctors at Szeto Memorial are very good.”

They can’t help but laugh at that, and the tension breaks.

“Can I see that stuff?” Zuko asks, gesturing to the topknots and wanted posters Ty Lee is still holding.

She nods and hands it to him. Zuko tosses them to the ground and sets fire to them. He leans back into Sokka to watch them burn. Sokka stares at the faces on the posters as they are eaten by the flames and imagines the men surrounding Zuko, grabbing him and violating him. He puts his arm around Zuko and pulls him in, holding him tightly. Zuko takes his hand and laces their fingers together.

“Do you think she really killed them?” Ty Lee asks. “Or was she just lying?”

“She wasn’t lying,” Mai says. “I can tell when she’s lying.”

“You can?!” Zuko asks. “How come I’ve never been able to tell?”

“Because you wanted to believe her,” Mai says matter-of-factly. “I never cared.”

“I know I just had a panic attack within five minutes of seeing her,” Zuko says, “but I think she was trying to help.”

Sokka thinks of the man he killed on the deck of the war ship after he taunted him about Zuko.

“I think you’re right.”

Zuko leans his head on Sokka’s shoulder and Sokka presses his face into Zuko’s hair, breathing in the smell of him.

He writes a letter to Iroh that night, asking him for another favor.

* * *

Zuko waits two days before broaching the subject of going to see his sister. To his surprise, Sokka is fully supportive.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Sokka says. “Can I go with you? I don’t have to talk to her with you if you don’t want but I want to be there.”

“Yeah, sure,” Zuko says, mostly just relieved that Sokka isn’t trying to talk him out of it.

They go the next morning. Zuko is nervous, not sure what will happen when he sees Azula again, but Sokka’s hand in his grounds him.

Sokka sits in the waiting room while Zuko talks to the doctor.

“She’s doing all right, all things considered,” Dr. Zaya tells him. “She’s cooperating and hasn’t had to be sedated at all. She won’t tell us why she left or what she did while she was gone. But the guards who brought her back told us what she said to you.”

“She’s pardoned for any crimes she committed while she was gone,” Zuko says firmly.

The doctor nods.

“I expected as much.”

A nurse approaches them.

“She’ll see you in her room,” he says, and motions for Zuko to follow him.

Zuko glances at Sokka, who nods encouragingly. He follows the nurse upstairs.

Azula’s room is the same as it was the last time he came to see her. All the rooms here are somewhat bare, but she’s decorated hers with pictures of different places in the Fire Nation, including their old house on Ember Island. He also notices a few letters in Mai and Ty Lee’s handwriting, but he politely refrains from reading them.

She’s sitting cross-legged on her bed waiting for him. The clothes that all the in-patients wear are eerily similar to the prisoner uniform Zuko wore when he and Sokka went to Boiling Rock, except without the belt. It took Zuko a couple visits to realize that that was because a patient could hang themselves with it. They have let her have a small ribbon to tie her hair up with, though.

“Hello, Zuzu,” she says.

Zuko hates the nickname, but she hasn’t used it in years, so he takes it as a good sign.

“Hi, Azula. Can I sit down?”

She nods and gestures to the other end of the bed. He imitates her cross-legged stance and sits across from her, meeting her gaze without flinching. Her face is older than when they were teenagers, but it’s also softer in a way he can’t quite describe.

“Why did you do it?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

She smiles at him, and there’s no cruelty in it, just sadness.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about when we were kids,” she says. “I never protected you. Our father pitted us against each other, made me see you as someone I had to compete with for his love. And I let him.”

“So did I,” Zuko says. “We were  _ kids _ . We didn’t know any better.”

“Still,” she says. “I could have protected you, and I didn’t.”

“Is that why you killed them? To protect me?”

She nods.

“I didn’t mean to freak you out that bad. I wasn’t thinking.”

He smiles a little. “You always did have a flair for drama.”

“I am sorry,” she says softly. “For everything.”

“Me, too,” Zuko says.

He holds out his hand and she takes it.

“Does this mean I’m invited to your wedding?” she asks.

“Mai and I broke up a while ago,” Zuko says.

“I know that, she told me she’s with Ty Lee. I can’t say I’m surprised. I mean your wedding to the Water Tribe boy. Sokka, right?”

“Who told you?”

She smiles at him and it reminds him of when they were teenagers and it felt like she could read his mind.

“Nobody told me. I just saw the way he acted around you. He looked like he was going to rip my head off.”

Zuko’s heart warms.

“Yeah, he’s very protective. You can come to the wedding if you want. We pushed it to next Spring.”

“Well, I think if I’m on my best behavior Zaya might let me go out for the day by then,” she says.

“I’ll put in a word for you.”

They talk for several hours. Azula gives him a hug before he leaves, and he thinks it’s the first time she’s done that since they were little. He hugs her back.

Sokka has dozed off in the waiting room. Before Zuko wakes him to leave, he finds Dr. Zaya again.

“I was wondering, um, if you had any recommendations for therapists that deal with… trauma.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Would you like your sister placed with somebody else?” 

“No,” Zuko says quickly. “It’s not for her. It’s, um, it’s for me.”

Her face softens in understanding.

“Yes, give me just a moment.”

She walks to her office and then returns a few minutes later and hands him a paper with several names and addresses written on it.

“These all practice in Capital City, and I’m sure they’d be happy to see you.”

She bows to him and leaves. He nudges Sokka awake and they leave together. 

* * *

They’re in bed later that night, cuddled up under the covers. Zuko doesn’t feel like doing much more than kissing, and Sokka doesn’t push him.

“How are you feeling?” Sokka asks him, cupping Zuko’s cheek in his hand.

“I don’t know,” Zuko says honestly. “I thought I’d feel better now that they’re dead, but I don’t.”

He remembers the faces of the four men on the wanted posters, and what they had looked like standing over him. He shivers, and Sokka pulls him in closer.

“I was thinking,” Sokka says, “that maybe we should go somewhere for a little while. Get you away from here. I think it would help you feel better.”

Zuko shakes his head.

“I can’t leave now. Things are still so tenuous here, we can’t be without a Fire Lord.”

“I thought of that,” Sokka says. “Your uncle says he’ll step in and take care of things for as long as you need.”

Zuko doesn’t respond to that at first, then says,

“Where would we go?”

“Wherever you want,” Sokka says. He leans in and presses a kiss to Zuko’s scar, his lips soft against Zuko’s cheek.

Zuko thinks for a little while. Sokka plays with his hair, gentle fingertips running over Zuko’s scalp.

“Will you take me home?” Zuko asks finally.

Sokka looks confused, then figures out what Zuko means.

“Like to the South Pole?”

“Yeah.”

Sokka smiles and kisses him.

“Of course. We’ll write tomorrow.”


	9. Chapter 9

The South Pole has changed a lot since Zuko was sixteen. He’s come here with Sokka a few times since the war, and every time he’s amazed at the rate of development, new buildings going up all over now that there are water benders to move the snow.

They stay in the newly built palace where Sokka’s father lives since being elected head chieftain. It’s completely different from the Fire Nation Royal Palace, built out of ice and decorated in Water Tribe blue. Zuko already felt calmer as soon as he and Sokka left the Fire Nation, but being here has soothed him even more. He still has nightmares, though, and every once in a while panic will creep up on him if he starts to feel cornered somewhere. Sometimes he takes out the sheet of paper that Dr. Zaya gave to him and stares at the list of names, thinks about writing to one of them. But something always stops him, and he puts it away. Sokka brings it up now and then, but doesn’t push when Zuko says he hasn’t reached out to anybody yet. And every time Zuko wakes in the middle of the night Sokka holds him and murmurs reassurances to him until he falls back asleep.

Another thing that helps is the sun. It’s the middle of summer, so there’s almost no night at the South Pole; the sun is overhead for nearly the whole day, only dipping down below the horizon for an hour or so each night. Zuko feels it tugging on him and anchors himself to it.

Sokka’s bed in the new palace is covered in heavy, warm furs, but they usually end up throwing off all but one. Zuko sleeps hot anyway, and Sokka says that curling up next to him is enough.

“You’re like a personal campfire,” he says, and pulls Zuko close to him.

Over the passing weeks, when they’re in bed together and Sokka’s mouth is against his, Zuko finds himself wanting more. He goes down on Sokka and finds that he enjoys it again; Sokka’s bright blue eyes flashing at him in the darkness and the way that the whole room smells like him keep the memories of the war ship at bay. And when Sokka’s fingers are inside him, his other hand on Zuko’s cock, it’s impossible for his mind to be anywhere else but here.

Sokka has made a project of teaching Zuko to fish. Zuko doesn’t mind, mostly because it involves being out on a boat alone together, listening to Sokka’s stream of consciousness. He points out places that he and Katara used to play as children, as well as roughly the spot where they first found Aang. Zuko tells him about seeing the resulting beam of light from his ship, the way it had felt to believe for the first time that he might be able to go back home.

He writes to Azula, and she writes back. It feels easier than it’s ever been to talk to her, to tell her about what he’s doing, especially now that he doesn’t have to censor himself when he talks about Sokka. He sees the way Sokka and Katara are together, the way their relationship is so easy and full of love, and he wonders if he and Azula could have been like that, under different circumstances.

Unlike when they’re in the Fire Nation, Zuko sometimes finds himself alone while Sokka attends meetings. It’s on one of these afternoons, when Zuko is sitting alone and staring at the list of names again, that he runs into Hakoda, who is on his way back to the palace with an armful of building plans. Zuko hastily shoves the list inside his coat.

“I think I’m getting old,” Hakoda says after agreeing to let Zuko carry some of the plans for him. “I used to have a higher tolerance for those meetings, but they just go on and on. It’s a good thing Sokka’s here to handle them when I can’t. He’s got a good head for this stuff.”

“I’m sorry for keeping him away from you so much,” Zuko says as they enter Hakoda’s private quarters and go to his study.

“Don’t be,” Hakoda says. “He’s happy with you. That’s more important.”

Zuko smiles gratefully. He remembers the first time he and Sokka came to the South Pole as a couple, the way that Hakoda had welcomed them unquestioningly. He gets sad sometimes, watching Sokka and Hakoda together and knowing that he’ll never be able to have that relationship with his own father, that his father will never love him that way. But he has his uncle, and Hakoda treats him like another son.

Hakoda offers him tea and he accepts. They go into the sitting room together, and Zuko takes off his coat and lays it over the back of the couch. It’s one of Sokka’s; they’re about the same size, which means Zuko didn’t need an entirely new wardrobe when they got here. Sokka likes to tell him he looks pretty in blue, and Zuko can’t deny that he blushes every time Sokka says it.

“Are those the therapists you’re thinking of seeing?” Hakoda asks as he sits down across from Zuko, gesturing at the paper that’s sticking out of Zuko’s coat. “Sokka told me. I hope that’s all right.”

“It’s all right,” Zuko says. “Yeah, I haven’t written any of them yet.”

“Is it about what happened with those Fire Nation dissenters a couple months ago?”

Zuko nods and takes the tea Hakoda hands him.

“I know it should help me get better,” Zuko says, “but if I talked to someone, I’d have to tell them… some things I’d rather not.”

Hakoda looks thoughtful.

“I only know what my children have told me about what happened,” he says after a while. “I know there’s more to the story, but I also know it’s none of my business.”

Zuko grips his tea in both hands and stares at the ground. He’s ashamed even of what Hakoda does know; this man whom he desperately wants to like him, who treats him like a son — what would he say if he knew how dirty and weak Zuko really was?

“You don’t have to tell me what happened to you,” Hakoda says. “But I’d like to tell you something. I was in prison almost a month before you and Sokka broke me out. The guards there… they did a lot of things I’d like to forget.”

Zuko looks up at him in surprise. Hakoda’s gaze is unflinching, and Zuko holds it as he continues,

“I think I know what happened to you on that ship. I know because it happened to me, too.”

“You…?”

Hakoda nods.

“I’m telling you this because I want you to know you’re not alone. You don’t need to feel ashamed.”

Zuko feels his throat tighten with the threat of tears, and takes a sip of his tea to keep them back.

“When we went through warrior training,” Hakoda continues, “we were taught what might happen if we were captured. Torture, rape — they’re part of what we risked when we went to war. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. But it’s not your fault.”

There are a thousand questions chasing each other around his head, but the one he chooses to ask is,

“Will I ever stop feeling dirty?”

“Yes,” Hakoda says. He leans forward and Zuko meets his eyes again. He has Sokka’s eyes. “Yes, you will. Someday you’ll go months without thinking about it, and when you do, it’ll just be a bad memory.”

There are tears in Zuko’s eyes and he doesn’t try to stop them anymore, just wipes them away on the back of his hand.

“Thank you.”

* * *

Zuko isn’t in the palace when Sokka finally gets back from his day of meetings, but Hakoda passes on the message that he was going to the docks. Sokka finds him there, staring out at the ocean. He sits down beside him and puts an arm around his shoulders, and Zuko kisses his cheek.

“Hey.”

“You alright?”

Zuko nods and smiles.

“Yeah. I wanted to catch the ship headed north so I could send a letter on it. I’m setting up an appointment with one of those therapists for when we get back.”

“That’s great,” Sokka says, then notices something else. “You’re wearing your necklace!”

Zuko’s hand goes up to where his betrothal necklace is tied around his neck.

“Mm-hm,” he says. “I decided to try it again, and I didn’t have a panic attack, so.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Sokka says, and kisses him.

Over dinner, Sokka fills his father in on what he missed during the rest of the meetings. They’re planning a new school building, and Hakoda has entrusted him with the bulk of the decision making, something that makes Sokka glow with pride. Zuko doesn’t speak much, but Sokka can tell from his face that he’s just listening, not upset, so he doesn’t worry. Zuko takes Sokka’s hand and holds it as he talks.

It’s once they’re back in Sokka’s bedroom that Zuko pulls him close and whispers in his ear,

“There‘s something else I’d like to try again.”

“Yeah? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I want you to fuck me, Sokka. Please.”

Sokka kisses him. “Okay.”

He takes Zuko’s hand, leads him to the bed. He undresses them both, one layer at a time, kissing Zuko in between each one. Zuko lies down on his back and pulls Sokka on top of him, and Sokka goes, lets his hands anchor themselves on either side of Zuko’s shoulders. Zuko reaches up and tugs Sokka’s hair out of its ponytail so that it falls down around his face. He smiles and runs his fingers through it.

Zuko’s eyes are bright gold in the firelight. Sokka leans down and kisses the edge of his scar, then his eyelid. The skin is tough under his lips but still warm, and he can feel Zuko smile against him. Zuko tangles his fingers in Sokka’s hair and pulls him in close, holding him there against his skin.

“Sokka…”

“You okay?”

“Yes. Kiss me.”

Sokka obliges, slipping his tongue into Zuko’s waiting mouth. Zuko moans into him, runs his hands over Sokka’s back. He wraps his legs around Sokka’s hips to pull him closer. Sokka moves lower, pressing kisses down Zuko’s neck and chest.

“You can leave marks, if you want,” Zuko says, his hand in Sokka’s hair.

“Yeah?”

Zuko used to love for Sokka to leave hickeys all over him when they fucked, but Sokka hasn’t done it since the assault, hasn’t even asked to — every time he thinks to do it, he remembers finding Zuko covered in bruises and burns, and the desire dies.

“Yeah, I want you to.”

Sokka smiles up at Zuko before returning to his chest, sucking marks into the skin. Zuko moans and arches up into him, his hand tightening in Sokka’s hair. Sokka makes a trail of little red marks down Zuko’s chest and stomach, moving slowly to where Zuko’s cock is hard against him. He flicks his gaze back up to Zuko’s before poking his tongue out and licking the underside in one long movement, base to tip. Zuko sighs with pleasure and Sokka wraps his lips around the shaft, taking him halfway down in one go.

“Sokka… Gods, Sokka, you feel so good…”

After a few minutes, Sokka switches to stroking Zuko’s cock while he presses kisses to the inside of his thighs. Zuko’s breaths are coming in quick little gasps and he thrusts up eagerly into Sokka’s hand.

“Want me to finger you?” Sokka asks.

“ _ Yes _ ,” Zuko moans.

Sokka gets up and grabs the lube from where they left it last night, on the floor among the many rugs. He slicks his fingers up and settles between Zuko’s legs. He presses one finger to Zuko’s asshole and Zuko whines. Zuko grabs him around the back of his neck and pulls him down, and Sokka goes, slipping his finger in as he leans down to kiss him. He swallows the little noises Zuko makes as he works him open, gently and slowly, savoring the way Zuko’s body feels against his own. He trails kisses down Zuko’s chest, pressing his mouth to the scar in the center where his skin is always a little warmer, then sucking on his nipple until Zuko whines and murmurs his name.

“Sokka… Sokka, do it. Put it in. Sokka, now, I want it…”

Sokka kisses his mouth and grabs the lube again, slicks up his cock as he holds Zuko’s gaze. Zuko looks up at him like he’s the only man in the whole world. He watches Zuko’s face as he presses in, as slowly as he can stand. Zuko squeezes his eyes shut, his cheeks flushed with pleasure. He bites his bottom lip the way that he always does, and Sokka reaches down to cup Zuko’s cheek, rubbing his thumb over the scarred skin. Zuko turns his face into Sokka’s hand, keening as Sokka bottoms out.

“Good?” Sokka pants, licking his lips as he looks down at Zuko’s body, splayed out beneath him.

“Yes, Sokka, yes,  _ so  _ good…”

Sokka holds onto Zuko’s hips as he starts to fuck him, slowly, watching every bit of pleasure that flashes across Zuko’s face. Zuko wraps his legs around Sokka’s body as though to hold him there. Sokka leans down and presses his face into Zuko’s neck, breathing in the scent of him — he smells like a candle that’s just been blown out, the faint remnants of smoke curling up into the air. He can feel the rise and fall of Zuko’s chest beneath him, the way his breath catches when Sokka hits his prostate at just the right angle.

Zuko tugs Sokka’s face to his and Sokka goes, meeting him in an open-mouthed, panting kiss. Zuko scrabbles at Sokka’s back, his nails scratching down the bare skin. Sokka fucks him harder in response and Zuko moans. Zuko catches Sokka’s bottom lip between his teeth and Sokka whines at the back of his throat.

But just then Zuko changes, almost imperceptibly. His muscles tense beneath Sokka and Sokka immediately knows something is wrong. He pulls out.

“What is it? Do you want to stop?”

Zuko swallows once, looks up at him, and nods.

“Can we just — just take a break for a second?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Sokka crawls up so he’s lying beside Zuko.

“D’you want me to put my clothes back on?” he offers.

“No, that’s okay,” Zuko says.

He pulls Sokka into him and Sokka wraps his arms around Zuko’s torso, holding him close. He can feel Zuko’s breath, hot on his neck, and he starts rubbing up and down his back to soothe him.

“You’re okay,” he murmurs. “You’re safe. I’m here.”

They stay like that for a long time, just holding each other. Sokka runs his fingers through Zuko’s hair, scratching his head the way he likes. Bit by bit the tension leaves Zuko’s body, and he relaxes into Sokka’s touch. He tilts his head up and Sokka meets him in a kiss, long and slow, savoring the way Zuko’s mouth feels against his own. Zuko’s hands start to move, touching Sokka’s back and running down to cup his ass.

“You okay?” Sokka asks, pushing a lock of Zuko’s hair behind his ear.

“I think so,” Zuko says. “Here, can you, um, can you lie on your back?”

“Yeah.”

Sokka moves onto his back and Zuko crawls on top of him, kissing down his chest. He wraps his mouth around Sokka’s cock and Sokka moans loudly, just barely stopping himself from thrusting up into Zuko’s mouth. Zuko wraps his hand around the length and licks along the underside, his other hand gently cupping Sokka’s balls. Sokka touches Zuko’s hair but doesn’t grab it, instead just running his fingers through it. Zuko strokes his cock as he presses kisses into the inside of Sokka’s thighs. Sokka whines at the back of his throat.

Zuko keeps one hand around Sokka’s shaft and comes back up to kiss his mouth.

“Where’s the lube?” he asks.

Sokka paws around in the sheets until he finds where he dropped it. He passes it to Zuko, who kneels above Sokka’s waist and pushes two fingers into himself.

“Are you sure?” Sokka asks.

Zuko nods. Sokka’s cock is already slick with his spit, so once he’s ready, all Zuko has to do is hold it in one hand as he guides it into his asshole. Sokka groans as Zuko bottoms out, their hips flush together.

“Shit, Zuko, you feel  _ so _ good.”

Zuko grins at him as he starts to move, bouncing up and down on his knees, his ass hot and tight around Sokka. He leans down, catching Sokka’s mouth with his own. Sokka puts his hands on Zuko’s hips and follows him as he moves, whining into the kiss. Zuko is panting, beads of sweat running down his chest. He removes Sokka’s hands from his waist and instead puts them on either side of Sokka’s head, tangling their fingers together as he leans over him, fucking back onto Sokka’s cock. His gold eyes are wide and he’s moaning like having Sokka inside him is the best thing he’s ever felt.

Sokka leans up and kisses him again, swallowing the little sounds of pleasure that Zuko makes as he rides him. He’s getting close, and he can see Zuko is, too, his cock hard and straining against his stomach. Zuko lets go of one of Sokka’s hands so he can touch himself, working quickly up to match the rhythm of his hips. His body against Sokka’s feels so good, Sokka can’t help but cup Zuko’s ass, feeling the place where his cock is going in and out. He shuts his eyes, trying to focus on the feeling of their hands tangled together, Zuko’s chest pressed to his own, his cock buried deep inside Zuko’s body. He can tell how close to finishing Zuko is by the way his breathing speeds up, by the erratic movement of Zuko’s hips.

“Sokka, Sokka look at me, please, I need to — need to see your eyes, Sokka —”

Sokka opens his eyes and meets Zuko’s gaze and Zuko comes with a small cry, all over his hand and both of their stomachs, his ass tightening around Sokka’s cock inside him.

“Shit, Sokka, shit, shit,  _ yes! _ ”

He collapses on top of Sokka and Sokka gently pulls out of him. Zuko’s whole body is limp against him, but after a few moments he pulls himself together to reach a hand down around Sokka’s cock. He strokes Sokka to orgasm and Sokka comes with a yell.

Sokka pulls Zuko down so he can kiss him, moaning into his mouth. Zuko is shaking against him so he pulls him into his arms, rubs his back until he stills.

“Are you okay?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Zuko says, and kisses him. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I’m  _ so _ okay, Sokka.”

Sokka laughs a little bit.

“Sokka, I love you so much.”

Zuko presses their bodies together beneath the covers and Sokka breathes in the smell of him, his heart thrumming in his chest.

“I love you, Zuko.”


	10. Epilogue

The wedding takes place late the next Spring at the Fire Nation Royal Palace. Normally the Fire Sages would officiate a royal wedding, especially for the reigning Fire Lord, but Sokka mentioned early on in the planning (which he did 90% of, getting so wrapped up and obsessive about it that Zuko found it much easier to just agree with everything he wanted than try to keep up) that in the Southern Water Tribe it’s customary for the couple to have their closest friend wed them, so they asked Aang.

As promised, Zuko has put in a word with Dr. Zaya, and Azula is allowed to attend. She almost looks like her old self again, decked out in finery like she used to be. She sits with Mai and Ty Lee, and although not everyone seems overjoyed at seeing her (he can’t blame Katara for the way she narrowed her eyes a little bit when Zuko warned their friends Azula would be invited) everybody is at least polite, which is the most Zuko thinks he could ask for for now.

Zuko misses most of Aang’s speech because he’s staring at Sokka. He’s wearing a set of custom robes that he had made for the occasion, in the style of many of Zuko’s royal robes but in blue and white instead of red and yellow. A gold headpiece in the shape of a flame sits in his ponytail and catches the sunlight.

When Aang finishes and Sokka leans forward to kiss him, Zuko feels his whole body light up with joy. The plan was to walk back down the aisle together, but before Zuko realizes what’s happening, Sokka has picked him up and is carrying him out past their friends and family. Zuko laughs and kisses his cheek.

Zuko wakes before Sokka the next day, at noon instead of his usual daybreak. He leaves Sokka to continue sleeping off the effects of last night’s party, which lasted well past midnight. Sokka joins him several hours later at the enormous pile of gifts -- every Fire Nation noble has sent something, but most of it is useless, just decor that somebody will have to find a place for in the palace.

“Anything good?” Sokka asks, picking up Zuko’s half-finished tea, now gone cold, and draining it in one gulp.

“Nah,” Zuko says.

He pulls Sokka down to sit next to him, presses his face into Sokka’s neck.

“Good morning, Fire Prince Sokka,” Zuko says, smiling a bit.

“Pretty sure if I marry the Fire Lord that makes me a Fire Lady,” Sokka says. “What’s that?”

He points to one present that Zuko hadn’t noticed yet. It’s smaller than many of the others, but given that most of the gifts are furniture, paintings, and various sculptures, that’s not saying a lot. It’s also much plainer; while all the other gifts are presented in ornately carved gift boxes or pouches, this one is in a plain wooden box with nothing adorning it. Zuko picks it up in his arms and it’s heavier than its size would imply.

Sokka opens the box when Zuko puts it down in front of him. It’s filled with plain white fabric to protect whatever is inside, and there’s a scroll sitting on top. Zuko unrolls it.

“To the Fire Lord, on the day of his marriage,” Sokka reads over Zuko’s shoulder. “Should you ever need protection.”

At the bottom of the page is an emblem of a sun.

Zuko digs through the cloth and pulls out a large, golden jewel. He instantly recognizes it as the Sun Stone from the Sun Warriors Temple, when he and Aang went all those years ago. It feels different than it did when he picked it up then — at the time, it had felt just slightly warm to the touch, but now it feels as though it’s pulsating with heat. Zuko can’t be sure, but he thinks he hears something moving inside it.

“Is that…?” Sokka asks.

Zuko nods.

“I think it’s a dragon egg.”


End file.
